In the late 2000’s I was working as auditor for two German registrars.

Both had somehow contracted to supply ISO 9001 initial registration and surveillance services to a number of car shops providing services for:

1. Meeting the regulatory requirements for periodic, systematic car checks;
2. Giving to the shops an excellence mark, examples of which can be seen on Formula One cars, relating to car electronics – or “autonics”.

I was asked to conduct audit programs for both registrars and, for some easily understandable reasons, I couldn’t say no.

MY ISO AUTO RISK STORY
Never had I in my auditor experience such a bad ground to walk on.  I’ll soon tell you why:

Both registrars, that I will code-name X and Y for confidentiality reasons, stipulated a contract with one consultant each, that would provide for a very easy-going registration and registration maintenance process to the car maintenance shops.

Money can really lube much but not everything and everyone.

For a start, the contracted – and contracting, as far customer fishing was concerned – consultants were all but aware of the business peculiarities.  And, if a cat smells a rat miles away, a car mechanic is at least as sly as a fox, it’s very difficult to cheat him or her.

So there they went, the brilliant young smartly dressed consultants into the oil smelling shops, shaking greasy hands, having to confront often hostile looks directly into their eyes.  Who were these men who arrogantly pretended to teach the mechanics a job that was theirs since generations?  Had Mr. Otto or Mr. Diesel worked with papers only?

The consultants, obeying their orders, quickly briefed the shop’s personnel: “have you ever met with a car mechanic that worked quietly, apart from the Japanese?  The consultants gave the hastily nominated ISO management representative – usually the owner’s least necessary son – the  ISO  forms to be filled and the consultants quickly left.

SAD TRUTH ABOUT AUTO MAINTENANCE
Our own life depends on cars, whether we drive one or not: let’s therefore focus on the factor ‘car’ as the root accident cause.  Car break-downs are connected to many causes: poor design, poor manufacture, poor assembly, and poor quality control before delivery.  But we are concerned with post delivery services, that is, maintenance.

In the good, old days cars were maintained by their owners and drivers, may be with the help of some friend, during weekends, before grilling steaks and drinking beer.  It was  pure enjoyment.

Nowadays, car servicing or auto maintenance is as compelling as brushing one’s teeth after every meal, or taking blood pressure readings every six hours or so.

However, good car servicing or maintenance is instrumental to our safety.

Based on this, I started my auto audit program and I was soon abashed.  Why?  Read on:

1. Car shops personnel simply didn’t care for any kind of ISO registration save one of the almost fifty that I audited.  The only one that really cared was the shop that was soon to be audited by Audi.
2. After the initial ISO registration was granted and God-knows-how, the car shops forgot everything that they were told about their quality management system – and did what they remembered, which was, nothing.
3. Both registrars insisted that initial and surveillance audit duration be conforming to official ISO ruling; just imagine to spend one full day – eight hours – interviewing a three-people team … (not even the Police …) and training them to justify the charged fee.  Wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest by the consultant?

As I expected, all ‘mechanics’ I met were skilled, well aware of the consequences of their errors, and very dependable.  They knew their tools had to be calibrated, well before ISO 9001 was born, and that critical auto repair procedures had to be followed, even if  they were unwritten.

I may exaggerate, yet I think that some of them – very good craftsmen – felt offended at being subject of something ignorant and ignoring like ISO 9001.

FINAL THOUGHT!
Forgive me, I’m an Italian.  I want to close this piece with a – at least tentative – smile.  In the movie My Cousin Vinny Marisa Tomei as her movie character learned as a kid sticking her nose into engines, by making her little hands dirty with differentials, and so on.

I learned to love cars during my primary school summer vacations when I spent time in my uncle’s auto repair shop, messing around the cars.  That’s why I became an engineer!