• ISO Certification

ISO Certification

ISO Standard & Accreditation:

As a small business owner, if you plan to bid on projects, particularly tenders released by larger corporations and government bodies, there is a good chance you will come across a requirement for ISO certification. While there are many types of ISO certifications, they are all designed to ensure that the products, services and process a company uses conform to acceptable international standards.

 

Understanding ISO Standards

The ISO has published over 22,000 different standards for goods, services and processes. Most common among these are the ISO 9000 family of standards, which are standards for ensuring that products and services are of high quality and are always being improved.

In 2018, the current version is ISO:2015, which can be used by any business. It deals with eight primary business principles:

  1. Customer focus
  2. Leadership
  3. Involvement of people
  4. Process approach
  5. System approach to management
  6. Continual improvement
  7. Factual approach to decision making
  8. Mutually beneficial supplier relationships

The ISO 14000 family is for environmental management, which is used for example by waste management companies. Other standards are designed for specific industries or sectors, which include:

  • ISO 13485 for medical devices
  • ISO/TS 29001 for the oil and gas industry
  • ISO/IEC 90003 for software engineering
  • ISO 17582 for government electoral organizations
  • ISO 18091 for local governments

The documentation for any of these standards, which specifies what is required to be compliant, can be purchased from the ISO or from an authorized vendor.

 

ISO Certification

The ISO does not certify organizations itself. To become certified, you need to contact a third-party that will audit your organization and determine whether or not your processes, products and services fulfill the ISO criteria. Most companies begin with ISO  certification, which is the basis for most of the other ISO standards. The cost of being certified varies depending on the size of your company. The process can take up to a year or more.

Organizations that can provide your company with ISO certification also have standards that they should adhere to, which are developed by the ISO’s Committee on Conformity Assessment. You may choose an organization that is accredited by iso committee as fulfilling its requirements, however the ISO acknowledges that not all certifying agents need to be iso accredited.

Once your company is ISO certified, you will be provided with a certificate from the certifying agency, which you can use when bidding for contracts or in your advertising to clients to show that your products or services adhere to the ISO’s exacting standards.

 

Benefits of ISO
ISO  Certification will provide maximum benefit to your organisation if it approaches ISO  implementation in a practical way. This will ensure that the Quality Management Systems that are adopted, work to improve the business and are not just a set of procedures that your employees will find hard to manage.

By adopting an approach that starts out to implement more efficient working practices and focuses on the business objectives of the organisation, you will achieve a system that will help and support your staff, and improve your levels of customer satisfaction.

Whether you use an external assessor or allocate an internal resource to carry out the initial assessments, you will need to ensure that they have buy-in from senior management, so that all areas of the organisation are aware of the importance of the ISO  Certification process.

ISO  Certification is not just suitable for large organisations but also small businesses that will benefit from adopting efficient Quality Management Systems that will save time and cost, improve efficiency and ultimately improve customer relationships.

 

Some of the benefits to your organization:

  • Provides senior management with an efficient management process
  • Sets out areas of responsibility across the organisation
  • Mandatory if you want to tender for some public sector work
  • Communicates a positive message to staff and customers
  • Identifies and encourages more efficient and time saving processes
  • Highlights deficiencies
  • Reduces your costs
  • Provides continuous assessment and improvement
  • Marketing opportunities

 

Some of the benefits to your customers:

  • Improved quality and service
  • Delivery on time
  • Right first time attitude
  • Fewer returned products and complaints
  • Independent audit demonstrates commitment to quality

 

Certification Process

  1. Registration & Payment
  2. Define Scope of Certification
  3. Submitting Documents [Client data]
    • Company Establishment Documents/ Work License
    • List of Employee
    • List of Supplier
    • List of Customer
    • List of Assets/ Machinery/ Equipment’s.
  4. We prepare Mandatory Documents & Records
  5. Assessment Audit & Prepare Report
  6. Issued Certificate