Certification for manufacturers

An auditor does not ask for a particular method. They ask whether inspection and testing points are defined for each product, whether the results are recorded, and what happens to product that fails. Complaints should be logged when they arrive, someone should find the cause, and the fix should be checked later to see that it held.

ISO 9001 is the standard that addresses this. Having it in place means a nonconforming batch is identified and held back, a complaint leads to a recorded corrective action, and management looks at the pattern of rejects and complaints, not only at single cases. A complaint log with no follow-up is a common gap.

Many buyers send their suppliers a questionnaire or an audit of their own, and many ask for a certificate to ISO 9001 as the starting point. The certificate does not replace a customer's own requirements for its product. It shows that you have a working system for meeting requirements and that an independent body has audited it.

In practice you should be able to show how drawings and customer requirements reach the shop floor, how you evaluate your own suppliers and how changes are controlled. If a customer asks for more than ISO 9001, for example a standard written for their sector, ask which standard and which edition they mean before you apply.

For safety, an auditor looks for a record of the hazards on the floor, how risk is assessed, how incidents and near misses are reported and investigated, and whether workers are consulted. For the environment, they look at what the plant emits, discharges, uses and throws away, and at whether the controls for the significant effects are in use.

ISO 45001 addresses health and safety, and ISO 14001 addresses the environment. Both ask you to keep a register of the legal requirements that apply to you and to check that you meet them. Which laws apply depends on where you operate and what you make, so check the legal requirements that apply to you. The two standards can be audited together.

ISO 50001 asks you to find out where energy is used, which equipment and processes use the most, and to set a baseline so that change can be measured. The auditor looks for meter or bill data, the named major uses, objectives for them and evidence that energy performance is improving.

Having it in place looks like a plant manager who can say what the three largest energy uses are, what was done about them this year and how the result was measured. The standard does not set a level of saving. It asks that you set your own aims and follow them up.

You can have one. ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 share the same structure, so one set of arrangements for documents, internal audits, corrective action and management review can serve all three. The audit is then done as a single integrated audit.

How much time that saves depends on how well the system is joined up, and we confirm it when we quote. Each standard is still audited against its own requirements. You can also start with one and add the others later.