The ISO 9001 certificate presents one of the most basic document in dealing with Chinese companies and suppliers. It certifies the quality management system at the organisation. Today, it is important to verify ISO certificates since there is a risk of getting a fake or an expired one.
What is it?
ISO 9001 certificate — document stating that the company passed certification process and has successfully operated quality management system in accordance with the provisions and requirements of the international standards.
Who can issue?
In China ISO 9001 certificates could be issued either by ISO organization itself and by foreign or domestic authorized company. The matter is whether you can trust your supplier providing the authentic certificate. Moreover take into account, that you should not hesitate to check the issuer entity which have to be accredited for certifying under international standards.
Most of the Chinese certification companies are accredited by United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), The ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB) and Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JAS-ANZ).
These are such certification companies as China Certification Center and Beijing New Century Inspection & Certification Co Ltd certified for ISO 9001 by both UKAS and ANAB. In fact, there are more certification companies operating in China. So make sure not only get confirmation from issuer that the certificate is genuine and relevant but also check whether the issuing body is accredited by large reliable international organizations.
What is shown in ISO 9001 certificate?
Certificates appearance may vary upon issued company, but generally each document contain same information about:
- certification number
- name of the company
- the addresses
- standard number and revision year — ISO 9001:2015
- certification scope or activity
- issue date and expiry date
- certificate issuer name
- issuer logo
- accreditation company logo and accreditation numbers
Below is given sample of the ISO 9001 certificate of Jinlong Machinery & Electronics Co. Ltd. for the “Design and Manufacture of Micro Vibration Motors and Related Management Activities” issued by IQNet and CQM containing this elements. Most of the certificates are in given both in English and Chinese
How to verify ISO 9001 certificate?
According to the ISO Survey 2017, there are 393 008 active valid certificates in China. That’s a huge amount comparing to 25 087 in USA or 45 030 in Japan. So the problem of scamming and faking certificates is real.
You can verify ISO 9001 certificate by yourself doing some background research or through quality inspection companies. Generally, verifying this document on your own requires a lot of effort and time together with some basic knowledge of elements presented on certificate, especially it concerns the issue of certificate scope. You have to understand what kind of activity it covers and check whether it is matching to reality.
Moreover, you can check provided certificate through the Certification and Accreditation Administration of the People’s Republic of China (CNCA) database and also through the database of accredited bodies at the China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS). Both websites have English version, so it would be easier for you to search.
Another way is to contact issuer and do background research on issuer’s reputation. Start with looking for logos, find phone number or emails and ask for their assistance in confirming this certificate. But it could turn out to be pretty challenging if issuer organization does not have English support.
Also looking into the ISO 9001 certificate elements make sure that the company name, address, certified activity shown there matches with the same in the provided business license. If not that’s a red flag!
Moreover, go to the ISO standard which should be 9001 and revision year which should be 2015 since the last update. Then check the expiry date, the certificate should be valid at the current moment. Be aware, the scammers would try to fool you on these elements.
Of course, more safer way is to rely on expert’s review of the quality inspection companies. Because in this field there is a decent risk and a lot of trivias which need to be checked and verified. You can arrange this kind of service at our company Importigy as well. But bear in mind, that сertificate authentication is only a part of the entire inspection process starting from checking a business license and ending with the post-production quality inspection.
Viktoriia Soloveva,
Coordinator at Importigy
