Jan 2012: Dutch Cheese, German Sausage

January found me in Germany, Holland and Mansfield; I suppose someone has to audit in Mansfield!! The Dutch audit was right on the Dutch/German border and was a 2 hour train journey from Schiphol airport. However, on the return journey, I was waiting at the station, platform 4b when the train came in so fast I did not think it was going to stop. I had to run the length of the platform to get to my reserved coach and was just reaching out for the door handle when the locks all ‘clucked’ locked. I screamed at the railway man 3 coaches down ‘to get the doors unlocked’ when they clicked unlocked. It was shear relief that I scrambled in to the coach with visions of missing my flight rapidly disappearing. A week’s visit to Germany upgraded a global American Company with the minimum of NCRs but the evening meals included German sausage and sizeable steaks! There was a training day on how the new AS 9100 Rev C was being implemented and I think we all learnt a lot from this day. Some consultancy work ensured that 1 client was able to move forward towards his certification.

Dec 2011: Turkish Delight Pt 2

December has been a relatively quiet month in the run up to Christmas but it has involved my giving a 2 day training course on Internal auditing to AS 9100 Rev C. However, the experience level in the course varied tremendously and it was difficult at times keeping everyone ‘on board’ right through the course. The month started with me completing an audit in Paris and finished with me trying to get back from Turkey in time for Christmas. The Turkish audit was for an aerospace Government complex and was very formal. The journey to the audit from Istanbul involved night trains with sleeping cabins which reminded me of films using the Orient Express but the cabins were very comfortable.

Nov 2011: Turkish Delight

Consultancy work was carried out at a previous client to prepare them for the Rev C upgrade audit and to implement an extension to their scope to include design. A visit to another client showed steady progress towards their AS 9120 certificate with hopefully a speeding up at the start of next year to get their certificate by mid-year. One week was spent auditing in Tunisia, another week in Paris and a third week in Poland. The 4th week was spent auditing in Birmingham. You have to take the rough with the smooth and was Paris rough!!! The trip to Turkey involved a 4.5 hour rental car journey into the mountains of Turkey and I will never complain about British drivers again. It seems that I should have paid a toll on the motorway but no-one was at the barrier so I drove straight through, it seems by mistake. So far a fine has not reached me, but I am keeping my head down. The journey was interesting to say the least, a tunnel collapse meant I had to take a long diversion but a lorry driver indicated the way to start with and I followed him at a very slow speed up a mountain. I then followed him into a quarry by mistake and with much arm waving, he indicated the way to go.