Whistlekleen is a national dry cleaning and laundry organization with 50 shops.

Whistlekleen is a national dry cleaning and laundry organization with 50 shops. You are conducting a surveillance audit of the Head Office and are sampling customer complaints. You find that 80% of complaints originate from five shops in the same region. Most of these complaints relate to damage to customer laundry. The Quality Manager tells you that those are the oldest shops in the organization. The cleaning equipment needs replacing, but the organization cannot afford it now. Complaining customers are offered a financial incentive to close the complaint.

On raising the matter with senior management, you are told that there are plans to replace the equipment in these shops over the next five years.

Select the one option which correctly describes the non-conformity to be raised against ISO 9001.