Confirming Conformance

I remember a situation many years ago when I was quality manager for a construction company.  Our purchasing officer was organising a second order of cabling for a facilities projects coming up.  His plea to me was valid:

"This vendor gave us crap products last time - they were basically wrong.  And yet, they are ISO9001 certified, and they’re the lowest price on the bid list.  What do I do?"

He was under pressure to award the contract. We were a small order, so had no pull with the vendor.  There wasn’t an obvious alternative.

The vendor got the contract.