Certification is a process where an independent body verifies, usually through an audit,  that your business is meeting the necessary or appropriate standards. These standards might be regionally, nationally, or internationally regulated. Your business or organisation may have a variety of things certified – for example its management system, or products, or both.

Product Certification

Certain products sold in Australia must be certified to an Australian Standard. The purpose of a mandatory standard is to make particular safety or information features on products compulsory for legal supply into the Australian market. It is an offence to supply these goods if they do not comply with mandatory standards. A list of these can be found on the ACCC website and they include Australian product standards for:

• Safety boots and construction hard hats.
• Blinds, curtain and window fittings.
• Child restraints for use in vehicles.

Many Australian product standards are based on ISO product standards. ISO stands for International Standards Organisation. They are an independent, non-government, organisation that began in 1947. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, they have a membership of 163 countries making them truly international.

Product Standards are important because they mean that, for example, nuts and bolts made in China to an ISO standard can be purchased by businesses in other countries using a common language. This language is the ISO product standard that details the nuts and bolts dimensions, thread, etc. Hence ISO product standards underpin the development of national and international regulations, helping save time and reduce barriers to international trade.

Management System Certification

ISO also produce management system standards. These are the result of consensus among international experts with expertise in global management, leadership strategies, and efficient and effective processes and practices. They can be implemented by any type of organisation, large or small.

ISO management system standards help organisations improve their performance by specifying outcomes for organisations to achieve and that will support their goals and objectives. For example, one of the requirements in the standard ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems is “The organisation shall determine and select opportunities for improvement and implement necessary actions to meet customer requirements and enhance customer satisfaction.” How you go about doing that is entirely up to you, your organisation’s culture, your resources, and so on.

The management system standards that businesses most frequently use are:

ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems – to help work more efficiently and reduce product failures.

ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems – to help reduce environmental impacts, reduce waste and be more sustainable.

ISO 45001 Occupational Health & Safety Management Systems – to help reduce safety incidents in the workplace.

The number appearing after “ISO” is simply a unique number given to each family of Standards. For example, all standards within the ISO 9000 family are concerned with quality management. The only standard an organisation can be certified to is ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems – Requirements. The other standards in this ISO family are guidance documents. For example, ISO 9000 defines some of the words (terms) used in ISO 9001.

The final number in the standard’s name refers to the version of the standard. It is the calendar year in which the standard was published. To give an example, ISO 45001:2018 OHS Management Systems – Requirements was published in the year 2018. The current standard, and hence the one to be certified to, is the one with the most recent calendar year in the title.

Certification can be a useful tool to add credibility, by demonstrating that your product or service meets the expectations of your customers. For some industries, certification is a legal or contractual requirement.

ISO develops all international ISO standards with the assistance of people from industry, but they are not involved in their certification, and they do not issue certificates. This is performed by Certification Bodies. More about them in another post.