Becoming certified vs staying certified
Certification is not the finish line. Becoming certified means that management has established a systematic way to plan, do, check, and act on relevant requirements, and that a certification body has assessed the management system as conforming to the selected standard within the defined scope.
Becoming certified
Whatever standard you certify against, there are defined requirements you need to meet.
How much of this is already in place, and which skills you have for building the required ways of working, varies from organization to organization.
If you lead a company moving toward certification, you need to understand the requirements in the standards you have chosen.
The work is about putting a system in place for how you meet and maintain those requirements over time. The organization also needs to understand what you do, why you do it, and how the work is done.
Staying certified
Staying certified means that you keep recurring activities alive during the year: responsibilities, goals, deviations, risks, supplier follow-up, internal audits, and management review.
The certification body’s auditor will normally follow up through recurring surveillance audits under the certification agreement. The purpose is to check that the management system is used, reviewed, improved, and still works within the certification scope.