ISO certificate can be obtained in respect of a good and service only when the quality standards prescribed by the international organization of standardization have been applied to the product or the service.
In India ISO certificates are issued by the duly authorized national standardized body of the ISO called the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Obtaining ISO certificate helps to attract the customers and provide a competitive advantage over the other companies by improving the overall efficiency of the business.
Procedure of obtaining ISO certificate in India is as follows-
1. A contract shall be shall be made between the applicant and registrar. The applicant and the registrar should agree on a contract. This contract usually defines rights and obligations of both parties and includes liability issues, confidentiality, and access rights.
2. All the quality manuals & documents related to various policies & procedures being followed in the organization will be reviewed by the ISO auditor. He may identify the possible loopholes against the requirements stipulated in the ISO standards by conducting a review.
3. Once the review will be completed by the ISO auditor he will communicate the existing loopholes in the organization of applicant and accordingly the applicant shall prepare an action plan to eliminate these loopholes.
4. After making the changes the ISO auditor will again audit the changes made. He will divide the variations in the procedure followed by the ISO standards into major and minor nonconformities. The applicant is required to carefully assess all these non-conformities and get it aligned as per the desired quality standards through modification in the techniques and processes used by the organization.
Further, the ISO auditor undertakes the final audit will check whether all the non-conformities have been eliminated or not as per ISO quality standards. In case the ISO auditor is satisfied, the applicant will prepare the final ISO audit report and forward it to the registrar.
5. After all, non-conformities are addressed and all the findings are put in the ISO audit report, the registrar will grant the applicant the ISO certification.
