An Overview of ISO Certification

ISO (International Standard Organization) is a non-governmental, independent, and international organization with the membership of over 164 national standard bodies. The main purpose of ISO is to form some standards that will give you the quality, safety, efficiency, services, and products' systems. ISO certification also acts as proof that the documentation process, management system, and manufacturing process are related to standardization and quality assurance. In this blog, we are discussing ISO Certification.

• ISO 9001 – Quality Management:

ISO 9001 certificate is for quality management and although it is not necessary to set any criteria. This certificate helps in creating a market place for the brand and creates customer focus.

• ISO 14001 – Environmental Management:

This certificate is used to set out the criteria that every organization must follow the environmental management system.

• ISO 22000 – Food Safety Management:

The main purpose of this certificate is safeguarding and identifying all the food safety standard hazards.

• ISO 13485 – Medical Devices

Organizations involved in installing, producing, designing, and providing all the services related to medical devices use this certificate.

• ISO 26000- Social Responsibility

This certificate helps the organizations to assess and address all the social responsibilities that are relevant and significant to their customers, employees, communities, operations, and processes.

• ISO 50001 - Energy Management

This certificate applies to all the activities affecting energy performance that are handled or controlled by the organization.

• ISO 31000 – Risk Management

This certificate gives rules, standards, and systems to manage the hazard. ISO 31000 helps organizations to improve the identification of threats and opportunities, use resources for risk treatment.

• If any company wants to expand its business internationally, this certification helps build credibility in overseas business.
• The product will face rejection on the ground of quality issues if the product doesn't match international standards' quality.
• Cost savings for SMMs, maintaining standards in food products yield growth.
• It helps in improving customer satisfaction because the main purpose of this certificate is to make the organization gives the best quality of services to their customers.
• This certificate plays a vital role to bid in tenders.

• Boost Consumer Confidence

It increases the customers' confidence and trust, and simply if any consumer sees an international logo, they automatically trust the product and their services.

• Broaden the market

It helps the business to grow and expand in the international market.

• Involvement of consumers

This certification helps in the involvement of consumers worldwide if the business is involved in the international market.

The documents required for the certification of ISO is mentioned below:

1. Passport size photograph.
2. Copy of Aadhar card and Voter ID.
3. Copy of PAN card.
4. Two copies of the Sale Purchase Invoice.

• Step 1: Give Application to Certification Body

The applicant needs to fill the application form or make a contract where the registrar and the applicant should agree on a contract. This contract is usually for the rights and obligations of both parties, including confidentiality and liability issues.

• Step 2: Document Evaluation by the Registrar

In this process, the registrar will check all the documents like quality manuals, policies, and company procedures. If the registrar found any problems in documents, then they will reject the application.

• Step 3: Audit in Company

Registrar will conduct an on-site audit in the company to check is there any changes required in the company or not. Suppose the registrar found any default or missing in ISO standards' requirements. In that case, a businessman has to fix all the company's flaws by preparing an effective action plan.

• Step 4: Final Audit

This is the final auditing process of all the affected areas because it cannot process further without this registrar until it gets verified.

• Step 5: Get ISO Certificate

After the successful completion of all the above processes, the registrar will grant you the ISO Certificate.

• Step 6: Surveillance Audits

This type of audits will be performed from time to time to check whether a company is following or maintain the ISO standards properly or not.

The cost involved in the process of ISO certifications is not fixed. It varies from organization to organization. The ISO agency calculates the cost of ISO certification separately after considering them on different categories such as:

• The number of working shifts.
• The number of employees.
• Number of Processes.
• Level of risk associated with the organization.
• The complexity of the management system.

The time taken for the issuance of the ISO certificate is totally based on your business entity's size, and these business entities are as follows:

• For small business entities, it will take 6 to 8 months to complete the whole process.
• For medium business entities, it will take 8 to 12 months to complete the whole process.
• Large business entities, it will take 12 to 15 months to complete the whole process. 

Certification of ISO is essential for Service Management System (SMMs) because of its ability to grow, profitable, and cost savings. In India, Many companies want ISO certification to satisfy customers. The main focus of ISO is to focus on process improvement, safety, and quality in several areas.