Rules to respect when changing from Certification Body

[Filip M.]

Dear,

we have different plants in China that are certified accordingly different standards eg.: ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO/TS, …

What are the rules defined by CNCA that must be respected when we change from our current certification body to another ? Can we change immediately ? What must we do ? What must be done by the current certification body ? What must be done by the new certification body ?.

As for this moment, we also have two group certificates, one for China and one for the rest of the world. Can we go for “one” group certificate that comprehend all our plants or are there also regulations that restrict that ? Please can you clarify this also.

Has someone experience whith those issues and can clarify ?

Thanks in advance for a reply.

Best regards,

Filip

 

[Marc]

There are some CB folks here who can better answer than I can, but essentially you have to establish a relationship/contract with the new CB. They will tell you what you need to do to get certs "transferred". Usually it entails the new CB doing a complete audit and if everything goes well they will issue a new certificate, but changing CB's isn't "immediate". You will probably have a time of overlap with the old CB and the new CB so your old certificates should be valid during the transition unless you terminate your contract with your old CB before the new CB does its audit(s) and issues you their certificate(s).

 

[Filip M.]

Hi Marc, thanks already for the information.

Nevertheless, I hope that someone or somebody of the mentioned CB folks can give us an answer on the CNCA (Chine) topic; See also start of this thread. For us it's totaly not clear what the rules are defined by CNCA.

By the way, assume that we terminate alreeady our contract with our current body before the new CB performed audits. What will happens with our cerificates, are they still valid or will our certificates withdrawn even they have an expiration date eg.: 2018.03.01

 

[radame]

Hello

Antecedent
I have an issue as my actual CB performed the IATF transition (Stage 1 and 2) audit but after two weeks of the audit they told us the audit was not valid due the reason we are out of the date indicated in the IATF rules:

"...- If the next regularly scheduled audit was to be a recertification audit, the allowable timing for this transition audit shall meet the recertification timing requirements for recertification audits according to the IATF Rules, section 5.1.1 (-3 months / +0 days). The transition audit can be performed earlier than -3 months without requesting a waiver from the relevant IATF Oversight Office. In situations where the timing (+0 days) cannot be met, the certification body shall start over with an initial certification audit with the following approved deviation: ..."

We were delay by 3 days (last day of audit), but the root cause was the CB as they changed us the date at last minute under the excuse some of the auditors were not available, then on Monday next week they delay again one more day and they never told us we will be out of the deadline to perform the transition.

I escalated this to the Oversight office but I got no answer from them...

Now the only option CB offer us is to perform another audit , stage 2 (at no cost but only the auditor expenses, travel, etc) with 4 auditors (original audit were only 2).

Actual situation
We want to get rid of this CB but a new CB implicates more time and expense to my company and we are in a hurry to get the new IATF certificate, so there will be no other option but to accept the offer and reschedule another audit with the actual CB as we can not waste more time to get our certificate.

If we accept the offer from the actual CB I know we are stick to them for the surveillance audits until the next 3 years for re-certification.

The question
Is there any possibility we can change the CB after the transition audit based on the issue we had documented on the problems they caused to us?? or do we need to live with them until the next re-certification?

Any help on this will be appreciated

Thanks

 

[qualprod]

Contact your new CB, they Will help You to make the changes
recently I was with one CB in the transition, but didn't want to continue with them, we contacted our new CB and they guided us properly, don't worry they will help you
Hope this helps