What Is ISO?
ISO Standards are created by an independent, non-governmental, international organisation. They are utilised by companies globally to ensure high-quality products/services, good health and safety procedures, eco-friendly practices and much much more. Many businesses opt to go for ISO Certification because they offer so many benefits to both them and their customers.
ISO certifications exist in many industries, The ISO standards are in place to ensure consistency and are independently audited via Certification bodies. Each certification has separate standards and criteria and is classified numerically. For instance, Candy MC can help with ISO 9001, Quality Management, ISO 14001 Environmental Management, ISO 45001 Occupational Health and safety, ISO 27001 Information Security and more.
Candy Management Consultants offer payment plans. Contact Us for more information.
How Does It Work?
Put simply, ISO Standards are management systems that you can implement to control and monitor the processes within your company about a certain element e.g. quality or environment. Once you have decided you want an ISO standard for your business, you can hire a consultant to help you to implement the system and ensure you achieve certification.
What Is Certification?
Once you have implemented your standard, you can then achieve a certificate to demonstrate to potential clients that you have good environmental practices for example (ISO 14001). An auditor will visit your business to review the practices you have implemented and reward you with a certificate. With certification, you can choose to go accredited or unaccredited.
Certification Bodies offer their Management System Certification, which is in most cases if accredited, covered by Accreditation to the International Standard ISO/IEC 17021:2015, and they are frequently assessed against the requirements of this standard by UKAS.
According to the definition, certification is the assessment of conformity. In most cases, requirements have been stated in specific standards, which include International ISO, European EN and various National standards either the Management System, the Product or Process, or Personnel can be certified.
Certification is valid for a fixed period (normally 3 years) after which a recertification audit can be performed. Certification surveillance assessments must be performed annually while the certification is valid.
Accredited
This means that your certificate has been awarded by a UKAS accredited certification body.
The auditor will check your management system against the UKAS requirements and ensure that you are compliant with the internationally recognised standards before awarding you with your certificate. Many governmental tenders will require your certificate to be UKAS accredited to consider you for contracts.
Unaccredited
If a certification body isn’t accredited, there’s no way of knowing whether it’s applying the relevant standard appropriately as per ISO17021. No one is checking that its assessments are done correctly, so it could theoretically be giving certifications to anyone who applies. As a result, certifications awarded by non-accredited bodies hold little weight in most cases.
In some cases, unaccredited can cost you more money in the long run as you may have to implement an accredited system eventually anyway to meet your clients’ needs.
We recommend choosing accredited ISO certification first time.
What Standards Do We Cover?
ISO 9001
ISO 9001 is the internationally recognised standard for Quality Management. The standard focusses on regulating and improving the processes you have in place to ensure high-quality products and services while maintaining regulations.
ISO 14001
ISO 14001 is the internationally recognised standard for Environmental Management. It specifies the requirements for an Environmental Management System that a business can use to enhance its environmental performance.
ISO 27001
ISO 27001 is the internationally recognised standard for Information Security. It focusses on regulating and improving the processes you have in place to ensure confidentiality and secure storage of essential information and documents.
ISO 45001
ISO 45001 specifies the requirements for an Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) Management System. It demonstrates commitment and compliance to workplace safety legislation.
ISO 22301
ISO 22301 is the Business Continuity Management System standard. The Business Continuity Management System (BCMS) has been developed to protect companies from the risks associated with downtime.
ISO 28007
ISO 28007 is a standard developed by ISO that outlines guidelines for private maritime security companies providing armed security services on board ships, ensuring compliance with legal and operational requirements.