Experienced auditors can often tell within minutes whether a quality management system (QMS) is genuinely embedded in the organization or simply polished for audit day.
The ability to actually change things is what many people working in quality ultimately want from their careers, argues quality mentor Ekaterina Potemkina.
If MedTech startups want to secure funding, reach the market faster, and avoid costly delays, they need to build regulatory planning into their business strategy from the earliest stages of development.
Employees often ignore management systems not out of resistance, but because the systems are disconnected from real daily work, writes quality coach and mentor Ekaterina Potemkina.
Critical and analytical thinking remain underdeveloped skills in many audit environments, writes Jörg Westphal, managing partner at Hellmund Die Personalberater.
If certification bodies worked like grocery stores, with auditors sitting ready on shelves whenever needed, life would certainly be easier for companies.
ISO 19011:2026 could have a bigger practical impact on companies than the upcoming ISO 9001 revision because it will reshape how organizations prepare for audits and prove their management systems are effective.
Even a major medical device manufacturer with ISO 13485 certification can run CAPA processes without meaningful effectiveness checks, as highlighted by Michelle Hilling.
Certification audits can either challenge and strengthen organizations or simply help them tick the box, and concern is growing that the latter is becoming more common.
As layers of requirements grow, audit results are becoming less consistent across organizations and markets, moving standards away from their original purpose.
ISO 13485 training provides a structured starting point for root cause investigation, but real-world practice determines whether those investigations are truly effective, as argued by Georg Digel, an expert in the standard.
Expectations of a quality role can shift sharply within the first 100 days, as early confidence gives way to the realities of how organizations actually operate.
The March update to ISO 20417:2026 exposes weaknesses in how medical device manufacturers handle product information across the lifecycle and should not be treated as a narrow labeling change.
A question raised by Kyle Chambers during a podcast prompted Michael Mills to explain how large, complex organizations can be certified to standards like ISO 9001, pointing to the need to carefully define the scope of certification.