A Guide to Effective Internal Management System Audits

CHAPTER 4: THIRD-PARTY CERTIFICATION OF MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Although the primary focus of this book is that of internal management systems audits, many organizations that implement the requirements of one or more of the international ISO standards often also choose to be certified by a so-called “third party.” To enable some comparison and, therefore, to be able to contrast audit styles, this chapter is included and describes the background to the development of “third-party certification of management systems,” or what’s more commonly known as “ISO certification.” This term is, in fact, somewhat misleading since the ISO organization doesn’t involve itself in any aspect of the certification process.

Although not required to be successful in implementing ...