The Three 'Action' Points: Certification, Registration and Accreditation

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Certification and Registration

The assessment of a quality system against the requirements of one of the ISO 9000 standards and the subsequent issuing of a certificate to confirm that it is in conformance with the standard's requirements is variously referred to in different countries as certification or registration. In fact, these two terms are employed in a broader conformity assessment context than that of ISO 9000 alone and their standardized definitions show that they are not synonyms.

However, in the ISO 9000 context, "certification" and "registration" are used interchangeably in some countries - a practice which reflects different national, or business culture preferences. Likewise, the bodies which issue ISO 9000 certificates - "certification bodies" - are referred to in some countries as "registration bodies", or "registrars". Again, these different appellations refer to the same type of body.

The above remarks also apply to the certification of environmental management systems which have been assessed as conforming to ISO 14000.

Accreditation

Accreditation is another term which, in the ISO 9000 or ISO 14000 context, is also sometimes used - wrongly - as a synonym for "certification" or "registration". "Accreditation" is the procedure by which an authoritative body gives formal recognition that a body or person is competent to carry out specific tasks. In the ISO 9000 or ISO 14000 context, it relates to the work of national accreditation bodies which have been set up in a number of countries to provide some measure of control over the activities of quality system or environmental management system certification bodies. An accreditation body will accredit - or, in simpler language, approve - a certification body as competent to carry out ISO 9000 certification of quality management systems, or ISO 14000 certification of environmental management systems, in specified business sectors.

ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 Certification

A final point on terminology concerns "ISO 9000 certification" and "ISO 14000 certification". In actual fact, "ISO 9000 certification" means certification against ISO 9001, ISO 9002 or ISO 9003. When speaking generally, the generic term "ISO 9000 certification" is much more convenient than clumsy, and possibly confusing, alternatives such as "ISO 9001/2/3" or "ISO 900x" certification - which is why it has entered into common usage, and is employed in this text. However, you need to be aware that an actual "ISO 9000 certificate" will specify against which standard the quality system in question has been assessed and found to be in conformance.

In the case of the ISO 14000 family, there is only one standard of which the intended use is as a model for environmental management system certification - ISO 14001. An organization which seeks certification of an environmental management system which it operates as conforming to the standard will therefore be issued with an ISO 14001 certificate. Nevertheless, in this text, the term "ISO 14000 certification" is employed for the sake of consistency with "ISO 9000 certification".

In both cases, the use of the generic term may have the merit of serving as a reminder that ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 are families of International Standards whose scopes - and usefulness for the organizations which implement them - cover far more than just the requirements for achieving certification.