ISO Certification
An ISO Certificate is typically good for three years. However, companies need to have an annual audit, at a minimum. In some cases, companies may have semi-annual audits.
Surveillance Audits
The two years following your initial certification audit, your company will have a partial system annual audit, known as a surveillance audit.
This audit covers core processes, changes since the last audit, areas of findings from the last audit, etc.
Recertification Audit
On the third year, the year of the ISO certificate’s expiration, your company will have a recertification audit. This is a full system audit where all processes are once again audited. Following a successful completion of your recertification audit, your ISO certificate will be issued for another 3 years and the surveillance / recertification audit cycle continues.
Importance of Maintaining your ISO System
The biggest regression that companies general face is between the initial certification audit and the first annual surveillance audit. Many companies will let out a sigh of relief once they pass their certification audit. This is when they typically stop following the requirements they laid out in their management system.
Then just prior to their first surveillance audit, companies panic as they are not ready to be audited.
What can you do?
The most important thing you can do is to treat your management system as your way of living. You need to live and breath or management system as if your business depends on it, because it should. Companies should ultimately build a management system that makes their company better, not build a management system to meet the requirements of a standard.
Ensure you have someone qualified to manage your system. It’s important to ensure you have a way to keep company accountable. If you don’t have that person, we can help.
We work with many companies as their ISO management system representative. We can customize a plan to ensure your system remains effective.