The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an independent, non-governmental organization, and it is the world’s largest developer of voluntary international standards and facilitates world trade by providing common standards between nations. Over twenty thousand standards have been set covering everything from manufactured products and technology to food safety, agriculture and healthcare.

Use of the standards aids in the creation of products and services that are safe, reliable and of good quality. The standards help businesses increase productivity while minimizing errors and waste. By enabling products from different markets to be directly compared, they facilitate companies in entering new markets and assist in the development of global trade on a fair basis. The standards also serve to safeguard consumers and the end-users of products and services, ensuring that certified products conform to the minimum standards set internationally.

An accredited registrar, also called an accredited certification body (CB), is an organisation accredited by a recognised accrediting body for its competence to audit and issue certification confirming that an organisation meets the requirements of a standard (e.g. ISO 9001 or ISO 14001). In the UK certification bodies are accredited to UKAS.

The consultant’s primary role is to assist your organisation with certain areas of your management system implementation and maintenance. While the consultant may act as an educator, a catalyst for deeper change, a resource, or a facilitator, the leadership of the process remains within your organisation and your top management team.

Consultancy fees are usually priced on a day rate and the number of days is dependant on which standard you are going for and if you already have some systems in operations. These can vary from 3 to 18 days. Certification fees are payable to the certification body and they typically charge based on number of employees. It is advisable you obtain quotes from both the consultant and various certification bodies before you commence on any projects.

This is dependent on where you are starting from and what resources you can assign to the project. The main factors are, in order to achieve stage 1 audit you must have a fully documented management system. For stage 2 audit you must have at least 3 months of records generated from the operation of your management system. Typically you could complete the whole process in 4 to 6 months. Some larger more complex businesses may require 9 to 12 months.

Providing the initial assessment is successful and your business gains certification, that certificate is valid for three years at the end of which the business will be subject to re-assessment. In the intervening period there will then be surveillance visits usually once or twice a year to check that the system continues to work.

A Management System, is a set of internal rules that are defined by a collection of policies, processes, documented procedures and records. This system defines how a company will achieve the creation and delivery of the product or service they provide to their customers. When implemented in your company, the Management System needs to be specific to the product or service you provide, so it is important to tailor it to your needs. However, in order to help ensure that you do not miss elements of a good system, some general guidelines exist in the form of ISO standards, which is intended to help standardize how a Management systems is designed.

A Business Manual is the first level of documentation in a Management System. You can have a Quality Manual for your Quality Management Systems, or you can have an Integrated Manual, covering all aspects of you Management Systems, such as Quality, Environmental, H&S and Information Security etc.

A transition is where you from an old standard to a new standard. For example many companies were certified to ISO 9001 2018. When ISO 9001 2015 was released there is a 3 year period to transition from the old to the new standard. 

No as the new standard has not made any major changes to requirements. However it is recommended that you do get acquainted with the new version and if any of the changes made do affect you then you will need to consider the impact of this on your organisation, and potentially need to amend and re-write the applicable areas.