Just curious, do you suspect overpricing or the price is right? And what is the good price for ISO 9001 certification then?

The term 'certification' covers a multitude of aspects:-

The 'price' of implementation? - it's different for each organization

The 'price' of the CB audit? - should be fairly similar in each 'region'

The 'price' of the certificate? (some CB's don't charge a 'certificate fee')

Ultimately, the customer/market 'regulates' the price.

Or you can consider the 'price' to a business of not being certified...

Just curious, do you suspect overpricing or the price is right? And what is the good price for ISO 9001 certification then?

Are you saying that the cost of ISO certification outweighs the "benefits" of ISO certification ?:rolleyes:

Just curious, do you suspect overpricing or the price is right? And what is the good price for ISO 9001 certification then?

"Price" is a term associated with something that will gradually lose its value and eventually will be disposed of. The proper word is an "investment" associated with designing, implementing and certification of a Quality Management System to which the organization is entitled a return. The financial return is directly related to the amount of effort Top Management is prepared to put forth and the unwavering commitment it demonstrates.

Stijloor.

Is there any standard / guideline which states that an audit manday cost for ISO 9001 must not be more than xxx $ ..... ?

Is there any standard / guideline which states that an audit manday cost for ISO 9001 must not be more than xxx $ ..... ?

No. There is a guide to the number of days an ISO 9001 audit must be (same for 14K, ISO/TS, As9100 etc.) but each CB sets their own prices or an audit day, fees for other associated services etc.

Just curious, do you suspect overpricing or the price is right?

Over pricing? That's priceless!:lmao:

"Price" is a term associated with something that will gradually lose its value and eventually will be disposed of. The proper word is an "investment" associated with designing, implementing and certification of a Quality Management System to which the organization is entitled a return. The financial return is directly related to the amount of effort Top Management is prepared to put forth and the unwavering commitment it demonstrates.

Stijloor.

Ok the right term is ‘investment’ but it seems to me that you are saying that there is no possibility of losing money. Are you?

Ok the right term is ‘investment’ but it seems to me that you are saying that there is no possibility of losing money. Are you?

Do you have doubts ?

Ok the right term is ‘investment’ but it seems to me that you are saying that there is no possibility of losing money. Are you?

Becoming certified is a strategic decision of management with the intent to add value and obtain customer satisfaction. It's not a gamble.

Stijloor.

Do you have doubts ?

no doubts. i’m just curious.. the subject line question ‘who regulates’ is still unanswered. any organization can get benefits from ISO 9001 even if you just have a compliant system especially if you don’t need international recognition unless certification is just a customer requirement.

no doubts. i’m just curious.. the subject line question ‘who regulates’ is still unanswered. any organization can get benefits from ISO 9001 even if you just have a compliant system especially if you don’t need international recognition unless certification is just a customer requirement.

I dont think there is any regulator for the price - but the market competition amongst the certification bodies makes the ISO certification competetive. :)

"Price" is a term associated with something that will gradually lose its value and eventually will be disposed of. The proper word is an "investment" associated with designing, implementing and certification of a Quality Management System to which the organization is entitled a return. The financial return is directly related to the amount of effort Top Management is prepared to put forth and the unwavering commitment it demonstrates.

Stijloor.

I agree with this in principle, but I wish that people would stop defining words to suit their particular purposes. A "price" is paid for an investment, no?

I agree with this in principle, but I wish that people would stop defining words to suit their particular purposes. A "price" is paid for an investment, no?

Yes Jim, I defined these words to clarify my position. And yes, you can also state that a price must be paid for an investment.
Semantics? Perhaps. I just hope that I was able to make my case. ;)

Stijloor.

To answer the OP....it's called Supply & Demand additionally "price" is determined by whatever the existing market will bear. It's called Economics (at least part of it is)

no doubts. i’m just curious.. the subject line question ‘who regulates’ is still unanswered. any organization can get benefits from ISO 9001 even if you just have a compliant system especially if you don’t need international recognition unless certification is just a customer requirement.

I answered it in my first post - 'No'!

Each CB sets their own price.....

As Andy said.....It's not regulated

No. There is a guide to the number of days an ISO 9001 audit must be (same for 14K, ISO/TS, As9100 etc.) but each CB sets their own prices or an audit day, fees for other associated services etc.

How much is the registrar’s charges normally? Or even the current charges per manday?

Fellow Covers,

Here is a situation:

A customer of a certified organization sends a complaint to ISO headquarter in Geneva, Switzerland. The issue is serious as a result, the head quarter decided to conduct a re-audit. Who should shoulder the cost of re-audit including the travel and living expenses of the headquarter’s representative, the organization or the organization’s CB?

Fellow Covers,

Here is a situation:

A customer of a certified organization sends a complaint to ISO headquarter in Geneva, Switzerland. The issue is serious as a result, the head quarter decided to conduct a re-audit. Who should shoulder the cost of re-audit including the travel and living expenses of the headquarter’s representative, the organization or the organization’s CB?

? Not an accurate 'hypothetical' here.

If a customer is dissatisfied, they need to complain to the certifier - one does not complain to 'ISO headquarters in Geneva'. If unhappy with certifier response, one then goes to the next level up.

And what do mean by 'headquarter'? Do you mean 'ISO decided to conduct a 're-audit'? If so, you're way off beam. ISO develops the standards - it does not, and never has (to my knowledge) conducted audits.

If we must have hypotheticals, they should be accurate and reasonably likely. This one is full of misunderstandings and inaccuracies and impossible.

Suggest you check the role of ISO the organisation, and the certifiers, and the organisations that oversee them, etc.

? Not an accurate 'hypothetical' here.

If a customer is dissatisfied, they need to complain to the certifier - one does not complain to 'ISO headquarters in Geneva'. If unhappy with certifier response, one then goes to the next level up.

And what do mean by 'headquarter'? Do you mean 'ISO decided to conduct a 're-audit'? If so, you're way off beam. ISO develops the standards - it does not, and never has (to my knowledge) conducted audits.

If we must have hypotheticals, they should be accurate and reasonably likely. This one is full of misunderstandings and inaccuracies and impossible.

Suggest you check the role of ISO the organisation, and the certifiers, and the organisations that oversee them, etc.

Who is the next level to approach regarding that matter? Who’s the body that monitors the certifier if they did the audit the way it should be?

If resolving dispute is not the role of ISO organization in Geneva, who is the proper authority (international level) who handles registration agency (the one who issued the certificate) in the regions? There are people who used to tap international if they are not happy with the local.

How much is the registrar’s charges normally? Or even the current charges per manday?

Which registrar? Which country? What type of audit? ISO 90001, ISO 14000, AS 9100?

Certification Bodies normally prepare a quote based on a number of criteria. You'd have to ask them for their day rates.....

We tried to ask for a discount from our CB because our mother company (bigger and has complex processes) took them a lower amount of investment to achieve ISO Certification compare to us (smaller and has simple processes). The only difference is that our number of employees is greater than that of our mother.

CB’s reason why they cannot give discounts is the number of employees we have. They added that if our customer escalated a complaint to an international body (not ISO organization headquarter in Geneva – sorry for the wrong info i mentioned a while ago) that requires them to conduct a re-audit and they find out that CB’s audit were not conducted properly due to lack of third-party auditors versus number of organization’s employees.
1) There is a risk to remove their license to operate if that happens.
2) Once re-audit will be conducted, CB will shoulder the amount of re-audit including travel and living expenses of the international body’s representative who did the audit. That’s not included in the certification contract between CB and the organization.

Your CB is correct. If you have more employees, then you should have more auditor days. If the CB does not have enough auditor days during the audit, then the accreditation body will give them a nonconformity and possibly void your certificate. To have a valid certificate it must be done per the requirements.

Can you give us the number of employees at your company and any exclusions claimed? Then we can look at the requirement documents and calculate the number of days you should have for your audit.

Your CB is correct. If you have more employees, then you should have more auditor days. If the CB does not have enough auditor days during the audit, then the accreditation body will give them a nonconformity and possibly void your certificate. To have a valid certificate it must be done per the requirements.

Can you give us the number of employees at your company and any exclusions claimed? Then we can look at the requirement documents and calculate the number of days you should have for your audit.

Either more auditor days or increase number of auditors. The number of positions is relatively the same as the mother company. The difference is we have more people of the same position than them.

To give you a context, for an Inventory Analyst role, this can be taken up by one person in the mother company with a different position title (e.g. someone from Accounting department with a position title of Auditor). But in our company we can have as many as 8 Inventory Analyst + the Accounting department Auditor. We also have more than a hundred people with the same position (e.g. vessel crew). However, these people have the same roles and responsibilities, therefore, CB only need to pick one or two people to audit – they are following the same processes.

As to the number of employees we have, I don’t have the number right now. I’ll tell you once I got the listing from our office. I’m at home. The permissible exclusion is 7.5.2, Validation of processes for production and service provision is not applicable to the quality system of our company.

Thank you for your willingness to calculate. I didn’t expect that we'll go to that degree, computation. My intent why I asked the question is to know if CB has a valid reason for not granting us the discounts or they are only using special scenario and applying it to us where the possibility of this scenario to happen is close to nil (situation wherein organization’s customer sends complaint to international body).

Suggest you check the role of ISO the organisation, and the certifiers, and the organisations that oversee them, etc.

Please confirm if my understanding on the following terminologies is correct:

ISO organization – formulates standards and do periodic review and revision.
Accreditation Bodies – Determines who can certify an organization
Certification Bodies – Third-party Auditors that audits organization and issues certificate to those who passed.

If the above are correct, who audits the accreditation bodies? Who gave them the power to accredit a certification body? How are they related to ISO organization?

Can you give us the number of employees at your company and.....?

Hi Steve,

We are more or less 400 employees (both land and vessel based)

Hi Steve,

We are more or less 400 employees (both land and vessel based)

According to the table in Appendix A of IAF Mandatory Document MD5:2009 (http://www.compad.com.au/cms/iaf/workstation/upFiles/626978.IAF-MD5-2009-QMS-EMS_Audit_Duration_-Pub.pdf), the audit duration for the Stage 1 and Stage 2 audits combined is 10 days for an organization with 400 employees. There are also some factors that the CB should consider that may add or subtract days from this starting point.

Increase in audit duration:
• Complicated logistics involving more than one building or location where work is carried out. e.g., a separate Design Centre must be audited;
• Staff speaking in more than one language (requiring interpreter(s) or preventing individual auditors from working independently);
• Very large site for the number of personnel (e.g., a forest);
• High degree of regulation (eg. food, drugs, aerospace, nuclear power etc);
• System covers highly complex processes or relatively high number of unique activities;
• Activities that require visiting temporary sites to confirm the activities of the permanent site(s) whose management system is subject to certification.
Decrease in audit duration:
• Client is not "design responsible" or other standard elements are not covered in the scope;
• Low risk products or processes;
• Very small site for number of personnel (e.g. office complex only);
• Maturity of management system;
• Combined audit of an integrated system of two or more compatible management systems;
• Prior knowledge of the client management system (e.g., already certified to another standard by the same CAB);
• Client preparedness for certification (e.g., already certified or recognized by another 3rd party scheme);
• Low complexity activities, e.g.
---• Processes involve a single generic activity (e.g., Service only);
---• Identical activities performed on all shifts with appropriate evidence of equivalent performance on all shifts based on prior audits (internal audits and CAB audits);
---• Where a significant proportion of staff carry out a similar simple function.
• Where staff include a number of people who work “off location” e.g. salespersons, drivers, service personnel, etc. and it is possible to substantially audit compliance of their activities with the system through review of records.

Please confirm if my understanding on the following terminologies is correct:

ISO organization – formulates standards and do periodic review and revision.
Accreditation Bodies – Determines who can certify an organization
Certification Bodies – Third-party Auditors that audits organization and issues certificate to those who passed.
Close, but actually the Certification Bodies are the employers of the auditors, not the auditors themselves. Other than that, correct.
If the above are correct, who audits the accreditation bodies? Who gave them the power to accredit a certification body? How are they related to ISO organization?
The accreditation bodies are members of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) (http://www.iaf.nu/). I don't think there is a formal relationship between the IAF and ISO. Does anyone else have further information?

Steve,

thank your for sharing your knowledge. I am so impressed in the way you answered my questions – direct to the core. I’m sure this will help organizations in dealing with CB;)

You are heaven sent, Steve.

Who audits the accreditation bodies? Who gave them the power to accredit a certification body? How are they related to ISO organization?


The accreditation bodies are members of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) (http://www.iaf.nu/). I don't think there is a formal relationship between the IAF and ISO. Does anyone else have further information?