Registration bodies that are not accredited?

[driaadi]

Hello everybody,

We are a small company in Romania.
We obtained our ISO 9001 Certificate about a month ago from a "registrar" that was recommend to us by a business partner. He told us that the auditors are ok, and indeed, the audit went very nice. We were impressed by our partner's stories and we didn't check if our registrar had been accredited itself. It is not.

So, we are told that only certificates issued by an accredited registrar are valid.
In our country there are a few bodies recognized by an accreditation Body - The Romanian Accreditation Body - and one body accredited by UKAS.
Moreover, on our certificate the is also the logo of EFQM, whom we supposed is the accreditation body for our registrar, but I searched their site and I see that they do not give accreditions for registrars. I also need to say that we are not the only company given the certificate by this registrar.

I don't really understand whether our certificate is valid or not. Any clues?

Thank you

 

[Coury Ferguson]

Hello everybody,

We are a small company in Romania.
We obtained our ISO 9001 Certificate about a month ago from a "registrar" that was recommend to us by a business partner. He told us that the auditors are ok, and indeed, the audit went very nice. We were impressed by our partner's stories and we didn't check if our registrar had been accredited itself. It is not.

So, we are told that only certificates issued by an accredited registrar are valid.
In our country there are a few bodies recognized by an accreditation Body - The Romanian Accreditation Body - and one body accredited by UKAS.
Moreover, on our certificate the is also the logo of EFQM, whom we supposed is the accreditation body for our registrar, but I searched their site and I see that they do not give accreditions for registrars. I also need to say that we are not the only company given the certificate by this registrar.

I don't really understand whether our certificate is valid or not. Any clues?

Thank you

If the question is: Are you registered by an Certification Body (CB) that is accredited by the Accreditation Body (AB) the answer is NO. Therefore be careful when claiming you are a Registered Firm.

If the question is: Are we self-proclaimed compliant to the Standard that might be ok.

Added: I have moved this post to this forum, because it is addressing Registrars

 

[Sidney Vianna]

I don't really understand whether our certificate is valid or not. Any clues?

You should do a search here. This issue has been exhaustively discussed. Concerning "validity" of a certificate, if YOU and your customers are happy with the certificate you have, then it is valid.

If you mean to ask: Is this certificate issued under the normal, "proper" accredited process? Then the answer is no.

The IAF signatory Accreditation Bodies do not include EFQM. Actually, EFQM is probably unaware that their logo is being misused in a conformity certificate. I believe I know the organization that issued your certificate. We have talked about them here, before.

I can not say you've been duped, but, from what you tell us, your certificate was not issued under the "normally-accepted" accreditation process.

 

[driaadi]

I believe I know the organization that issued your certificate. We have talked about them here, before.

Maybe you have, maybe not, the truth is there are many not accredited "registrars" in Romania. And they do have a lot of clients! Even local authorities and state -own companies!

Can there anything be done about them?

 

[SteelMaiden]

can anything be done about them? I guess that would depend upon a) what their claims of accreditation are, and b) what sort of laws there are in Romania about false advertising (if in fact they do claim accreditation and are not)

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Maybe you have, maybe not,

Shuffle the letters SMMI

the truth is there are many not accredited "registrars" in Romania. And they do have a lot of clients! Even local authorities and state -own companies!

As the ISO 9000 registration phenomena to uncharted geographies, such as Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, etc., ignorance is preyed upon. Because users are uninformed about accreditation, pseudo-accreditation, unaccredited certification, it is very easy for people to be misled. The cheaper, easier and fast solution always seem attractive.

Can there anything be done about them?

Only educated, well informed users can do something about it and that would be to partner with CB's who have the proper credentials.

You mentioned (somewhat complaining) that there are not many accredited registrars in Romania. Still, you selected a CB that does not have an IAF recognized accreditation. Maybe their approach to an easier, seamless implementation and certification was enticing to you.

 

[driaadi]

I admit I was attracted by the easy-way stories about this registrar, but I never imagined they weren't accredited and we never intended to just get away with it the easy way. I just believed we comply and we are really good in what we do.

And we didn't even realize the problem until after we received the certificate, because we thought EFQM was their AB.

Besides, Romania is not "uncharted geography", but I won't argue with you about our geography, culture or education. It is off topic. "There be dragons" is just a simplistic way of showing your cultural attitude. "Only educated people":mg:??

Excuse me... What did I offend you with, so that you show this superiority attitude? do you think you are so much better than us? just because we are eastern Europeans, speak 3 foreign languages, read a lot of literature (American, French, Japanese, Latin American etc), we can beat you in sports, we have our own houses and cars (no mortgage, property), we have 2MB/s internet at home, we eat at restaurants every day, we can travel at leisure anywhere we want to, we have a 2000-year "charted" history... and a lot more to be proud and never want to live anywhere else! Just come and visit!

remeber Shakespeare "There may be more on Earth and in the skies... "

Off topic - you can test your "uncharted geography" playing this game (oups, it's foreign language...)

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Besides, Romania is not "uncharted geography", but I won't argue with you about our geography, culture or education.

I meant no disrespect. What I meant is that ISO 9000 certification started in the UK, progressed to Western Europe, North America, Australia, etc... ISO 9001 certification is relatively new in places such as the Middle East, Africa, China (even though they have the largest number of certificates), Eastern Europe, Russia, etc....Just looking at the numbers of ISO 9001 certificates from the ISO Survey confirms that.

Once again, I meant no disrespect when I used the term uncharted geography.

 

[driaadi]

I see, it's ok, thank you again for your clarifications.

Since we may to revise our system for an accredited CB, I will come again with questions and stories for you folks here.

 

[SteelMaiden]

Since we may to revise our system for an accredited CB, I will come again with questions and stories for you folks here.

Well, hopefully, their "certification" of your facility actually covered the requirements and you won't have to do much in the line of "fixing". good luck.