Multisite certification at Unica: 35% cost reduction!
Recently I supported Ronald Velsink QHSE-manager at the Dutch Unica group with the offer for their recertification of multisite ISO 9001&14001.
Unica has about 20 sites in the Netherlands, with several legal entities. In their certification till now the IAF.MD1 was not an issue, they were not aware of it.
Multisite certification was working well for them. Before this recertification, the number of audit days was based on the total number of people at Unica working at the different sites. It was even not so clear if there was really multisite certification, based on the MD1.
For the recertification in 2021, the certifier reduced their initial offer, which has resulted in a saving of about 35%!
Learnings
- The certifier was very late in their offer to Unica. Because of the rather urgent planning of the audits for the recertification, it was not possible anymore to ask other certifiers for an offer. Probably it makes sense to start this process of asking for offers for the recertification, shortly after the last surveillance audit.
- Clearly, certifiers are not used to receive information from their client with argued reductions that should be applied in the offer, like the effective number of people, correct risk (9001) and complexity (14001&45001) categories, mature and integrated management systems, and the certifier who should be able to do integrated audits.
- Certifiers normally don’t share their calculation on the number of audit days. Unclear is how they apply the documents from the IAF, which are indeed mandatory to them.
- Ronald Velsink negotiated with the certifier about the offer. Probably certifiers are also not used that companies do this. Companies should negotiate and ask for competitive offers.
- Very strange is that the certifier offered the same number of audit days for the coming 2 surveillance audits. Based on the MD1 these audit days should vary, depending on the sites which are sampled to be audited in that year. Audit days for sites could differ, because of the different number of people. Certifiers should offer the audit days for each separate site for when a site is sampled to be audited in the coming certification period of 3 years.
- According to the certifier, it was not possible now with real multisite certification, to list different scopes for the sites. But, according to the MD1, it's possible to have sub-scopes listed on the multisite certificate.
For companies, it's wise to have a basic understanding of the relevant mandatory documents from the IAF. As Ronald Velsink stated: “Bas Logister of MD1.Support helped us in the understanding of the requirements and the calculation of multisite certification, and he supported us in the negotiations with the certifier”.
See further our homepage on MD1.Support!
