Frequently Asked Questions
If your question is not answered here, please do not hesitate to contact us.
ISO is the world’s most used standards for Quality, Environmental, Health and Safety, Information Security, Food Management, Energy Management, Asset Management and Risk Management systems, to name a few. The standards are used in over 175 countries.
ISO gives companies a set of management guidelines that help ensure risks are managed and mitigated. ISO standards do not outline exactly how a business should be managed, instead it offers a flexible system that companies can implement to improve quality control and quality assurance.
There are numerous benefits depending on the ISO standard implemented such as:
- Improved customer satisfaction.
- Improved operational efficiency.
- Management of company risks.
- Management of environmental impacts.
- Reduced health and safety incidents.
ISO certification shows your company’s stakeholders that you care about effective risk management. Being ISO certified allows you the opportunity to acquire more business since many international companies will only work with ISO certified partners.
ISO certification has the potential to benefit businesses in a wide variety of industries, such as engineering, printing, automotive, aerospace, construction, electronics, medical device manufacturing and more. ISO offers guidelines for various ISO Management Systems that can be applied to all types of business models. Operations of any size can get certified.
All businesses interested in meeting quality, environmental, health, safety, information security, risk, food safety or social responsibility should consider ISO certification.
ISO standards allow for good governance in all the above areas.
To achieve ISO certification in a specific standard, you will need to entrench the standard and successfully attain an initial certification through a stage 1 and stage 2 certification audit. After earning the initial certification, you will need to complete yearly surveillance audits and a recertification audit every three years in order to maintain your certification.
The audits must be completed by an accredited third-party certification body such as Sancert.
The cost of ISO certification varies based on a number of factors such as; audit duration, business size, risk, number of sites or branches, number of staff and number of business functions.
In order to get a more accurate costing please complete an application form and submit to Sancert, we will gladly provide you with a quotation and an audit plan that suits your operation for consideration.
Each country has an accreditation body or is affiliated with an accreditation body who is part of the IAF (International Accreditation forum). The accreditation body will audit certification service providers such as ourselves, Sancert, to ensure we meet auditing regulations and have the necessary experience to offer certification to companies such as yours in the market.
It is always best to ensure your certification body is accredited by an approved accreditation body. This can be checked on the IAF website.
Sancert is an accredited certification service provider for a number of ISO standards.
In order to buy a copy of a specific ISO standard the best place to start is on the ISO website. Standards can also be purchased in your country from the official ISO custodian.
We pride ourselves on being a service orientated business and ensuring our clients have a great customer experience at all times, therefore we have a very quick response time to meeting client expectations.
Once the application is submitted you will receive a quote within 1 to 3 days. We are able to accommodate audit dates within 2 to 4 weeks, issuing reports takes 5 to 7 days after the audit and issuing certificates takes 5 to 7 days after the report is sent.
This is all based on the client meeting the Sancert T&C’s.
There are various audit methods that we apply depending on the type of ISO certification and the type of scope we are auditing. Typically in this digital day and age we offer a blended auditing process that consists of a remote document and record review that a client can share with us via a secure online login or cloud access, and then a stipulated number of audit days at the client’s site to review the processes.
It is best to complete the Sancert application so that we can be more specific on audit planning for your company.
After certification has been acheived, Sancert will send through the electronic certification logos that can be used as well as the use of logo document. You can also refer to the use of logo document here: SANCERT USE OF LOGO