Organizations interested in ISA’s certification services fill out a brief on-line application on this website.
Document Review is conducted by ISA auditors to verify the establishment of documented policies and procedures addressing the requirements of the desired assessment standard. This review also evaluates organization’s readiness for assessment.
This assessment helps the organization discover areas of potential nonconformance and provides opportunity to correct them prior to formal certification audit. The on-site visit determines the organization’s compliance status, serves as a gap analysis for benchmarking and is extremely helpful in determining readiness for assessment.
During this formal audit, the assessors examine and evaluate the Quality Management Systems (QMS) conformance with the requirements of the applicable standard. The duration of the visit depends upon specific criteria including, the size of your organization, complexity of scope activities, and number of sites seeking approval. Upon successful conclusion of the assessment the audit team concludes their decision to recommend the organization for certification.
Auditing ISO 9001, AS9100 or AS9120 requires auditors to obtain a good understanding of an auditee’s quality management system (QMS) and the nature of its business.
- Conduct a site tour to familiarize themselves with organization’s operation and processes.
- Discuss and confirm organization’s intended scope.
- Gain an understanding of organization’s QMS in the context of their focus on customer expectations and the associated business process by which they meet these.
- Establish whether organization’s QMS is process focused- that clear quality objectives and targets have been set.
- Review documented QMS to check that all the documentation required by the standard, which is relevant to the organization, has been identified and documented in a controlled manner. This element is referred to as the ‘document review’.
- Confirm whether QMS implementation justifies proceeding with the Stage 2 audit, if yes, determine with organization a date for the audit.
- Prepare and discuss with client Stage 2 audit process, based around the key objectives and activities of the organization.
After a stage 1 audit, a report is issued to identify the degree of readiness and to give time to the client to improve the quality system before the Stage 2 Audit. The Certification Stage 2 Audit (Initial Certification) involves a full review of the company’s implementation of their Management System. The duration of the audit allows a detailed review of records and documents used to provide evidence that the organization’s processes are controlled and have predictable outcomes. The outcomes of the processes need to show that they meet customer expectations as well as the objectives and policies set by the organization’s management.
Upon successful closure of any nonconformance and review of the audit package by ISA’s audit program management along with subsequent acceptance of the registration recommendation by the Certification Committee, ISA issues the registration certificate.
Certification information is submitted to the global databases, among others the ISA website and OASIS DATABASE (Online Aerospace Supplier Information System). OASIS submission is mandatory for all AS9100 and AS9120 certified organizations, entries in OASIS database serve OEMs as evidence of certification according to Aerospace series of standards.
Once certified, these assessments are conducted periodically to assure continued compliance of the organization’s quality management system (QMS) and to ensure the system continues to be effectively maintained. Emphasis is placed on continual improvements.