Purchasers without a background in the quality field often have trouble understanding what “our factory is certified” really means. I will try to clarify it in this article.
How does it work?
A factory that wants to get a certification (also called “accreditation”) needs to pay a company (which is itself a certified “registrar”) to get such a document. The registrar will audit the factory and certify that it is compliant to a certain standard.
Regular re-audits will be necessary to renew the certification. In principle, if serious nonconformities are noticed, the renewal is impossible.
Note that a factory’s certification has nothing to do with the certification of its products.
What are the most common standards?
ISO 9001 (Quality Management System)
This is by far the most popular “management standard”, with a focus on quality. It lays out what a technical committee considered to be the very minimum any company should comply with, if they aim at satisfying their customers and at improving over time.
In practice, a lot of Chinese companies got ISO 9001 certified even though they don’t deserve it. It is too easy with the right registrar, since registrars that are too strict can’t get clients. Commercial considerations often prime.
That’s why I beware of accreditations delivered by publicly listed companies (SGS, Bureau Veritas, etc.) and of course by Chinese registrars.
ISO 14001 – Environmental Management
This more recent standard has been fashionable over the past few years. It is the equivalent of ISO 9001, but related to respect of the environment rather than quality.
SA 8000 (Social Responsibility)
This one is pretty hard to get. The auditor takes a good look at the following areas: child labor, forced labor, health & safety, freedom of association, discrimination, disciplinary practices, working hours, and remuneration.
It sets certain rules regardless of the country, and the application of local laws (whichever is stricter).
OHSAS 18001 (Health & safety)
I admit I don’t know much about this standard, which will probably be replaced by ISO 45001 soon.
Other types of certifications
In addition to general standards, there are many industry-specific standards: AS9100C, OSO/TS 16949, etc.
There are also customer-specific standards — a large buyer defines a standard and requires its suppliers to comply with it.
Tips for the smart importer
If a potential supplier tells you they have a certification, should you simply accept this as a fact? I would advise to follow this advice:
- Always ask for the company’s business registration certificate and for the certificate
- Check if the names match between these two documents, and also with the supplier’s email signature and business card
- Check the validity date of the certificate
- Check if the scope written on the certificate includes manufacturing your products
- Call the registrar and ask them if they have accredited this company (there are lots of fake certificates around)
Tips specific for ISO 9001 certifications
Ask for the quality manual (which might be only in Chinese, unfortunately) and check:
- What basic information (employees..) is written about the company? Is it the same as they told you?
- Look at the objectives they have set for themselves. Believe it or not, a factory can be certified as compliant with the ISO 9001 standard if its stated objective is “less than 30% of defects”.
- What exclusions did they apply relative to clause 7 (product realization), and do they seem justified?
- Do they simply repeat the standard when you read the manual? It is a signal that they just prepared paperwork to get certified, rather than living and breathing the standard.
- If they claim certifications to several standards (ex ISO 9001 and 14001): have they prepared an integrated management system? Again, having several manuals screams “it’s just paperwork”.
Maybe some readers have other tips?
All good advice. A few more ideas:
1) Consider how long the supplier has held the certification. It is relatively easy to get through an initial registration, but harder to keep the registration. Several years are really needed for a system to “mature”. (A related red flag: if your established supplier changes registrar companies often, that’s a real concern.)
2) Check that the registrar (the third party who issues the certificate) are themselves accredited,
and by whom. At a minimum I would expect the registrar to be accredited by an organization who is a member of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF). You can find a list on IAF’s website.
There is a registrar here in the USA who will issue certificates without auditing the plant at all, I will not risk a libel lawsuit by calling them names; but in my mind certification from this organization is meaningless. And, there is an accreditation organization not part
of the IAF who accredits them.
3) When you visit the factory, test them out. An ISO 9000 certified plant should have:
— Written procedures for checking, and usually for producing, products
— Written records from the checks
— Labeling of all materials, including identification of who inspected and approved the goods
— Control of all checking instruments – they should be verified for accuracy on a regular schedule.
If they don’t have these readily available, then their certification is questionable.
Yes, they will be in Chinese, of course. But you should be able to see a logical approach. And workers who have been working in a legitimate, rigourous ISO 9000 system will be used to
answering these questions.
Thanks Brad, these a really good points!
Good points from Brad. There are too many cases of “certification overshoot” where factories pass the certification and then consider it is achieved and then can rest. One year after the certification (first certification) processed and documentation all go down the drain: you see displays and record sheets everywhere, but the date is from the time the auditors came for certification – after that, no update.
This is when factory management considers certification as an unavoidable evil and do the minimum to get the paper, with no genuine effort to improve.
Yes, all for the show… The stupid registration system, in the Chinese environment (where rules that can be circumvented always are), was destined to fail.
We usually check:
1. Business registration
2. Tax office papers.
3. Export license
4. Bank information
All quality standarts like ISO is good but don’t work in Russia and China both, nobody here believe in them :D.
Thanks Pavel.