DNV Certification USA - Customer Communication_June 2009

[Sidney Vianna]

If there are changes in your organization...
In these challenging times, organizations have been forced to make continual changes to address their needs. Due to this, it is important for DNV Certification to maintain an effective flow of communication with our customers, regarding organization changes. ISO 17021 (requirements DNV Certification must meet to maintain accreditation) requires the following:
“8.6.3 Notice of changes by a client
The certification body shall have legally enforceable arrangements to ensure that a certified client informs the certification body, without delay, of matters that may affect the capability of the management system to continue to fulfill the requirements of the standard used for certification. These include, for example, change related to
1. the legal, commercial, organizational status or ownership,
2. organization and management (e.g. key managerial, decision-making or technical staff),
3. contact address and sites,
4. scope of operations under the certified management system, and
5. major changes to the management system and processes.”

In addition to communicating these changes to your auditor during the audit process, and to help you comply with the “without delay”, it is important that you provide the DNV Customer Support Specialist that has been assigned to you, with any major organization changes meeting the criteria above.
To download a PDF copy of DNV Customer Contact Sheet.
Re-Certification Audits
This is a big re-certification year. We have been noticing that some customers have scheduled their re-certification audits very close to their certificate expiration date. It is important to understand ANAB’s position, as outlined in Heads-Up 146, which is that the recertification decision (made by DNV Certification Technical Department) has to be made prior to the certificate expiring. The consequence of not meeting this requirement is that the original certification date will be lost, even though DNV Certification can issue a new certificate.
Heads-Up 146
There is no option to postpone a recertification audit past the certification expiration date. The recertification audit must be completed, and the recertification decision must be made prior to expiration, to avoid loss of certification (ISO/IEC 17021:2006, 9.4.2.2).
The key words in this requirement are “recertification decision”, which mean that DNV’s auditors need to submit their recommendation to the DNV Certification Technical Department. Their recommendation will be based on a satisfactory audit, closure of all major nonconformities, and/or an accepted satisfactory response to any minor nonconformities.
Sufficient time must be scheduled prior to the certificate expiry date to allow for:
• the audit to be performed
• satisfactory closure or response to nonconformities received
• time for technical to review the recommendation from our auditors
• and time for our Certification Department to issue the certificate
Any audit scheduled less than 6 weeks prior to the certificate expiry date, creates a high degree of risk that a certificate cannot be issued before the expiration date. In order to avoid any chances of your certificate not being issued prior to the expiration date, you are advised to schedule your recertification audit at least 6 weeks prior to the certificate expiry date.