Would anyone here be able to provide some insight to the following question?
We are currently certified to the ISO 9001:2000 standard. The company may be sold shortly. The name of the company would most likely change as well as some of the Management Staff. What happens to our current certification and what will need to be done to maintain it? I don't want to ask our registrar just yet, as the deal is not done or offical at this time.
Thanks for any input.

Craig,

The same has just happened here, approx 5 weeks ago.

I had discussed the situation with the auditors at the last round of audits (9k2k and 14001) so they gave a bit of sound advice.

We are lucky (me!!) that all of the management team are still here and the new owners are fully committed to quality, environment and are pushing me to achieve TS2 !!

Our cert body is happy to wait until the next round of surveillance visits, but the principals must be on site for their commitment to be assessed.

This does not help you too much, but try talking to your auditor, as a scenario question, assuming they are the same every visit.

It also depends if the group acquiring your company have their own 'pet' cert body.

Hope that helps a little

Chris

Hello, i work for a major automotive supplier and we have been sold to another main player in 2002. If your processes and structure remains the same, there is no reason why your certificate will not remain valid. If i can recall correctly, you will be able to request new certificates with your new name. Alternatively, if your new owner has a corporate certificate with location attachements, you might need to go through recert.

also, the above is assume that none of your processes are tied in at a coporate office or business unit (e.g. sales and procurement, etc...). If this is the case, you might need to get a recertification to validate that the processes of your new owner tie in with your own.

Craig,

I went thru this situation about 3 years ago. There was no change in our certification status at all. After the next periodic audit from our registrar (we were on a 6 month schedule) the certificate was issued with the new company name.


Bob

Thanks for all the info everyone. It has been very helpful.
Craig

What happens to our current certification and what will need to be done to maintain it
First of all, you have already recieved good answers, so there is no need for me to add to them. What remains is to wish you welcome to the Cove. :bigwave:

/Claes

Thanks for the welcome. Though my first post, I have visited the forums often and learned a great deal. What I learned here went a long way in our successful upgrade to the 2000 revision of ISO9001.
Thanks again!
Craig

What happens with a "partial" buyout or ownership transfer? I don't think certificates are "transferrable" to new owners when they only buy PART of your facility and you want to take your certificate with you for the part that remains - right?