AS/NZS ISO 9001:2008 Quality management systems and AS/NZS ISO 14001:2004 Environmental Management Systems - What is the value in third party certification?
When an organisation decides to implement an ISO standard within its organisation it needs to decide how it will demonstrate conformity with the standard. There are in essence four ways to do this, these will be described below.
|
Method of demonstrating conformity |
Description |
|
Make a self determination |
This system is frequently used and the organisations that use it will says something like this: ABC Ltd has a business management systems that complies with the requirements of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. This system while very inexpensive has a problem in that it is difficult to prove and clients will often ask to undertake their own review of the system. |
|
Seek confirmation from parties that have an interest in the organisation. |
If an organisation has made a self determination and a client reviews their system, that client may make a statement saying that they believe the system conforms to the standard. The difficulty here is will another company believe the statement. A slightly different approach is if an organisation has engaged outside assistance to develop their system. The company that has been engaged may provide a certificate or statement saying that the system they installed meets the requirements of the standard. With both of these variants two questions will be asked:
|
|
Seek confirmation of the organisation’s self declaration by a third party. |
In essence this is a cheap external audit. Organisations will choose this option if they want a cheaper audit. While the audit can be seen to be fully independent questions will be asked as the competence of the third party making the confirmation. The confirmation is only is good as the party making it. |
|
Seek certification from an accredited company. |
In New Zealand and Australia JAS-ANZ is the government appointed accreditation body responsible for providing accreditation of conformity assessment bodies (CABs) in the fields of certification and inspection. Accreditation by JAS-ANZ demonstrates the competence and independence of these CABs. Certification of an ISO standard by a CAB proves to all parties that the organisation’s systems meet the required standard. Clients can therefore have confidence in the integrity of the organisations systems. |
In summary while there are many ways that an organisation can claim conformity to an ISO standard the only way that provides certainty to all parties is via gaining certification using an accredited company. In New Zealand and Australia this provided via JAS-ANZ accredited conformity assessment body.
So if an organisation claims conformity (but not certification) to a standard, clients should ask to see the certificate to determine what standard of conformity has been attained and then make their own assessment on the evidence provided.