ISO Consulting Support – Do you need help with ISO 9001, ISO 14001 or OHASAS 18001?

Whilst ISO training courses can be very helpful to increase understanding of the 9001, 14001 and 18001 standards, a bit of external help is often what is needed, especially for small and medium sized companies. This might be to develop a quality, environmental or health and safety management system from scratch with a view to registration by an accredited body, or it may be to offer help with the internal auditing and support of an existing system.

Finding reliable ISO Consulting support can be a bit tricky, especially if you do not have a lot of previous experience with using external consultants. Firstly, it is always a good idea to contact more than one consultant to make a comparison between offers, to gauge price competitiveness, and also to make sure that you have a good rapport with the individual that you will be employing to assist you. To locate possible candidates for ISO Consulting support you can of course carry out a few searches on the internet to locate suitable consultants that are working in you region. You might also consider contacting some of the major certification bodies, such as BSI, NQA, LRQA and others, as they will generally maintain databases of consultants that are known to them.

Once you have obtained quotations it is also essential that you take up references from some of the consultant’s previous clients. With a few quick phone calls you should be able to establish how well the consultant has performed on previous ISO Consulting support work.

Once you have selected a consultant for ISO Consulting support you then need to work closely with the consultant to design and implement the management systems that you want to achieve certification for. For the project to succeed it is essential that your organisation is clearly committed to the objectives of the project and to the successful implementation and maintenance of the system in in compliance with the relevant international standard. It also essential that sufficient in-house management time and resources are made available to work closely with the Consultant to explain and discuss current procedures, and to work jointly in the development of documented procedures to meet the requirements of both the Organisation and the relevant standard.

Most companies will develop systems for assessment by an accredited certification body and another important consideration relates to the choice of certification body. Most assessment bodies carrying out assessment work within the UK will assess a management system under a UKAS accredited scheme. UKAS is the United Kingdom Accreditation Service and is the national body recognised by the UK government to assess the certification bodies against internationally agreed standards. Other countries also have similar national organisations regulating their certification schemes for example, ANAB in the USA, INAB in Ireland, etc. There are, however, a number of organisations offering certification services that are not monitored as part of nationally recognised scheme, and the benefits of such certifications are questionable. Organisations that have been assessed and certified under a UKAS accredited scheme are allowed to display the UKAS crown and tick logo alongside the relevant certification logo of the certification body carrying out the assessment.