Choosing a certification body

The last step towards getting ISO 9001 certification is that of choosing a certification body.

The role of consultants is to help you design a quality management system that helps you improve your business, that is compliant with the requirements of ISO 9001 standards. On the other hand, consultants cannot issue ISO 9001 certificates to their clients. I like giving the example of a consultant having the role of the teacher, and certification body having the role of the examination body.

Does not mean that a certification body is there two to critically assess you or your businesses. Rather, a good certification body would prioritise your business improvement over any other metric.

In Malta, there are multiple certification body options. The most common option is the MCCAA (Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority). As the name suggests this government department isn’t solely concerned with ISO certifications and therefore have a limited staff resource. said that it would be a good idea for new companies who I getting certified and have a limited budget to choose the certification body.

There are other alternatives including Lloyd’s Register and Bureau Veritas. The latter options are much more expensive than the local certification body. Having said that their brand name is synonymous with high-quality service. And after being present in several audits by these certification bodies myself, I can confirm that indeed they do send specialised professionals depending on the industry in which your company operates. This is sure to give you you a service that will help you to drive improvement through the management system.

Before going ahead and choosing a certification body, make sure to have completed a proper implementation of ISO 9001. It is important that you would have completed all the required documentation and that you have done an internal audit for your processes.

The process of getting certified through a certification body is as follows:

Step 1: applying certification body and getting a quote. the value of the quote usually depends on the number of people that are employed within your organisation.

Step 2: This is called stage one ordered whereby the certification body will audit your processes remotely, by evaluating your documentation.

Step 3: depending on the complexity of the documentation, certification body will decide the number of days that I needed for the on-site audit. certification body will communicate the results with you and will encourage you to make necessary changes as deemed necessary after the stage 1 audit.

Step 4: typically one auditor will visit your offices and by following a rather generic external audit template they will evaluate all your processes.

If you are now seeking to get ISO 9001 certified, and you’re struggling in choosing certification body, get in touch now. I’d love to help. Click here to get a quote for ISO 9001 Certification.