What is ISO Accreditation and How Is It Distinct From ISO Certification?

The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) creates many internationally recognized standards that are followed by for-profit and nonprofit organizations and corporations. The standards are connected to the essential management facets of a company or organization, such as ISO 9001 for quality management, ISO 27001 for data security management, ISO 45001 for workplace safety management, and many others.

However, you shouldknow more than the phrases ISO certification and accreditation sometimes confuse firms. Even though many people use them to signify the same thing, there is a clear distinction between the two terminologies.

The definition of ISO accreditation

An official statement of the competence of your management system or work processes by a high-level authoritative organization is referred to as ISO accreditation, as explained by https://aegis.qa/ .The accreditation standards provide the essential QMS principles, which also contain the principles emphasized by the well-known ISO 9001 standard.

An organization must adhere to the principles of an ISO standard and fulfill all of its requirements to receive accreditation. An authoritative body must confirm this throughout the accreditation process. Therefore, accreditation is a third-party body approving an ISO standard for a corporation.

ISO Certification vs. Accreditation

Definition

As previously stated, ISO accreditation is the formal endorsement of an organization's proficiency and adherence to an ISO standard by a reputable and authorized third-party agency.

In contrast, ISO certification is a formal declaration by a certifying authority or agency that a company's goods, services, or operational procedures adhere to the strict guidelines of an ISO standard.

As a result, certification is the third-party endorsement of the business's products, services, or processes, whereas accreditation is the third-party approval of the ISO standards.

Process

An authorized third party must evaluate your  organization's proficiency as part of the accreditation procedure. Because the evaluation must be completely unbiased, a third party must conduct it. The organization's representatives will evaluate your company's operational processes and determine whether everything complies with a certain ISO standard, such as ISO 17025, accredited for testing laboratories.

A third-party certification body's formal declaration that your organization's goods, procedures, or management system comply with a standard's emphasized requirements is known as certification. The body will conduct a complete on-site audit of your business and analyze the documentation about your operations, goods, or services to verify that.

Through the audits, they will ensure that all of the standards' rules or restrictions are followed, and if they are, they will grant the organization certification.

Application:

Accreditation is required for the testing, calibration, inspection, product evaluation, review, and certification agencies that conduct quality checks on other businesses to ensure that they follow applicable standards and legislation. The key issue now is who or what qualifies for accreditation and what qualifies for certification. Finding the answer is not difficult if you know how the two notions differ. 

On the other hand, certification is open to any company, group, or person who sells goods or renders services. They are expected to demonstrate their adherence to the rules of global standards.

Although the phrases accreditation and certification do not have the same meaning, they offer organizations the same advantages. If a company wants to be accredited or certified, it primarily needs to adhere to the rules of a specific standard, which has several inherent advantages.