What the future holds

The business landscape is transforming at an astonishing rate as organizations seek to weather the downturn as best they
can. Management system standards and certification are also compelled to adapt.

ISO 17021

There have been a number of regulatory changes for certification, but perhaps the most significant has been the introduction of ISO 17021. The
standard, which came into force on 15 September 2008, applies to management systems of all types. It replaces ISO/IEC Guide 62:1996 and Guide 66:1996, with the overall aim of reducing the proliferation of such standards. It provides requirements for the competence and impartiality of the audit and certification of management systems including quality, environmental, information security and food safety.

Roger Bennett, director for conformity assessment bodies at the International Accreditation Forum, says that ISO 17021 has already had a “significant effect”, although perhaps not in the way originally intended. “Designed to ‘raise the bar’, in my view it has had no such effect,” he says. “Rather than level the playing field, it has exacerbated the differences. It is far too prescriptive in places and because of additional administration requirements, it has raised certifi cation body costs without adding value to the paying customer. It focuses on how to do something rather than the performance aim.”

A second part of ISO 17021 is due to be published in 2011 and will introduce a requirements standard for management system auditing. Roger warns that ISO 17021-2 could increase costs by removing the current broad capability of auditors and making them similar to product inspectors. “This will mean more auditors will be required to service the existing portfolio, thus significantly raising the costs of accredited certification,” he adds.

Confidence in the system

Tony Brown, chairman of the CQI Standards Development Group, feels another problem with the current system is that certification bodies often
overlook the needs of their main customer – they are focused on the commercial side of retaining that customer.

“The system is not working,” he says. “Third party assessors do not know the business and do not know what the company wants.” However, he adds that in principle he agrees with the concept of accreditation, but the process needs to be more thought out.

Confidence in the system has also become something of an issue for certifi cation. Vince Desmond, executive director of business development at the CQI, argues that one of the big issues surrounding certification is having a global system in which companies and stakeholders have confidence. Currently, accreditation in one country is not equivalent to accreditation in another. “Each country has different standards,” he says. “The big challenge is getting the global system working so the confidence is there and the global trade barrier will be reduced. There are moves afoot in other countries for confidence levels to be addressed.”

A new EU regulation for accreditation is also due to come into force this month. Under the regulation, each European country will be allowed only a single national accreditation body as of January 2010. This will cover the operation of accreditation in support of voluntary conformity assessment as well as conformity assessment required by legislation.

The aim of this is to make accreditation across member states consistent and reinforce the status of certification across Europe. Common requirements for accreditation bodies will be set out by member state governments.

Sector-specific standards

The landscape of management systems standards themselves has also changed over the last few years. While the quality management standard ISO 9001 has become something of a “one-size fits all”, according to Roger, he also points to a steady growth in the number of standards for specific sectors, especially the telecoms (TL 9000), aerospace (AS 9100) and automotive (ISO/ TS 16949). “In almost all cases, these are based on ISO 9001 with additional requirements determined by trade associations and their members.”

The areas of business in which standards are being written is an interesting point for the future of certification. As Catherine Golds, head of certification body NQA, says: “There are always new standards being written and developed by ISO.” She points to the environment as being a big growth area for new and amended standards. “There are big moves in terms of people becoming much more concerned about their company’s impact on the environment as the population grows.”

Meanwhile, Neil Hannah, global operations director, BSI Group, notes an increasing trend towards the integration of systems, which he describes as “very much welcomed”. And Jackie Burton, business and customer relations manager at the UK Accreditation Service, says that some organizations have reached a “level of maturity” in working with the management system standards in isolation, so “the next stage is for these organizations to integrate into one management system that refl ects the business model of the organization”.

The recession

However, it would be diffi cult to talk about the future of certification without considering the impact of the recession. Certification bodies are finding that the tough economic climate is causing some companies to hesitate about investment decisions. Neil says: “We understand this well and the challenge for all certification bodies is to respond by ensuring added value is maximised but without compromising on the standards or the integrity of the process in any way.”

Jackie agrees that the recession will mean organizations need to have confidence in their suppliers, adding that UKAS believes there will be an increased focus on third-party certification providing assurance of quality products and services.

Roger adds: “Many certification bodies are seeing that a number of clients are downsizing, which has resulted in a reduction in the number of days needed to audit that client, because the number of days is based on client headcount. We have also seen clients who have closed down entirely – they have shut for a number of months. This has caused some issues because scheduled audits that have to be carried out within specifi ed time frames cannot be carried out because the firm is effectively shut.”

The IAF has tried to address this, he says, by coming up with some “more fl exible” rules that allow some leeway on audit timings, but “without compromising compliance with the relevant standard or the credibility of accredited certification”.

Many in the business suggest that certifi cation might be dropped by those companies who see it as a cost, especially in tough economic times, but also, as Vince says, it’s difficult to tell at the moment. “We’ll find out more this year,” he concludes.