The International Accreditation Forum (IAF) confirmed today that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will pursue the creation of the first global database of ISO 9001 certifications.
Through a measure pushed by ISO 9001 consultant Richard Murdock of North Fork Services, the ISO database will presumably be a complete listing of all ISO 9001 certificates issued worldwide by certification bodies (CBs) accredited under IAF rules. Since its inception in 1987, listings of ISO 9001 certificates have been left to the CBs themselves, or various clearinghouses. Some of these clearinghouses charged outrageous fees to access their databases, while others comprised only tiny portions of the world’s listings. This has made it difficult, and often impossible, to verify the ISO 9001 certification status of companies claiming to have it.
Using the AS9100 database “OASIS” as a model, Mr. Murdock pushed the idea to the IAF and ISO. In OASIS all AS9100 certified companies are listed in a single place, easily searched, with data updated in near real-time. The IAF Secretary responded to Mr. Murdock today, saying, “ISO has in fact decided to go ahead with the establishment of a database on a trial basis, so we are awaiting the outcome of the trial.”
It appears that the database will be an ISO product, and not that of the IAF, but is likely only to list those certificates valid under IAF multilateral agreements. This would not include the growing number of “certificate mill” ISO 9001 certificates being released by unaccredited registrars.
“This is nothing but good news,” Oxebridge VP Operations Chris Paris said.”Not only will it make verifying ISO 9001 status much simpler, it will help give us hard numbers on certifications worldwide. As an added bonus, it will help identify the accredited certificates and make it more difficult for the unaccredited certificate mills to fool users into believing their certs are valid.”
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
