You are conducting a Stage 2 audit at an organisation that services refrigeration equipment for...

You are conducting a Stage 2 audit at an organisation that services refrigeration equipment for a large customer base. The scope of certification is “Provision of refrigeration equipment maintenance and repair services”. You are interviewing the Managing Director to learn more about the organisation and to explore how the requirements for policy, objectives, and risks and opportunities in ISO 9001 are addressed.

The Managing Director explains that they only use sub-contract refrigeration engineers and do not have any full-time refrigeration engineers, which helps to optimise overhead costs.

The Managing Director adds that the ISO 9001 requirements for the competence of personnel extend to both sub-contract and full-time staff.

You then asked 2 of the sub-contract engineers what they could do to contribute to the effectiveness of the quality management system, they replied stating that “we are not really sure as we have not been told how we could contribute”. The Managing Director added that this is not applicable as they only use sub-contractors who operate ISO 9001 certificated quality management systems. The documented information provided to the auditor confirms this.

Which clause in ISO 9001 has not been fulfilled in this instance?