With over 4000 certification bodies and 68 IAF MLA signatory accreditation bodies globally, validation of certifications across supply chains can be difficult. The aggregation of certification data in one global database – IAFCertSearch – makes the validation process simple and efficient.
IAF Director for Users and Industry, IAF UAC Chair, Sheronda Jeffries said, “Via IAF CertSearch businesses and governments can ensure all suppliers in their supply chains hold valid accredited certifications and can be instantly alerted if the certification is suspended, withdrawn or expired”
IAF Chairman Mr Xiao Jianhua said, “IAF CertSearch is a game changer for accredited certification, improving the awareness, integrity and value of accredited certification. Organizations will no longer be able to claim to have an accredited certification when they do not.”
Mr Jianhua added, “Launching the database is a great milestone! Trading with certified organizations is a way businesses and governments can demonstrate they have high quality, compliant, transparent global supply chains.”
The database also helps organizations demonstrate that organizations in their supply chains meet environmental, social, and governance standards.
Media Fact Sheet
Quotes from global stakeholders as seen in introductory video below
Grant Ramaly – Co-convener Medical Devices WG, DTA – Dental Trade Alliance
Said, “Medical devices, what can you say, every needs them, glucose meters, blood pressure cuffs, your dentist uses them, life saving devices, life supporting devices, regulators really need to be able to trust those certificates they use to protect the public health, and trying to find out which ones they can trust is really hard, having the IAF CertSearch database available to them where they can look up a manufacturer of a medical device and see the certificate they hold is valid is really important not just to the regulators but to all of us whose lives depend on them.”
James Bruin IATF – International Automotive Task Force
Said, “We also require certification to ISO 9001 for what we call our tier two suppliers, this certification is not tracked in a database today. So, for our industry if we need to find out about a certification of a tier two supplier it’s not easy, we end up having to ask that supplier for the certificate to be sent directly to us and for verification purposes we would have to go back through the certification body and the accreditation body to verify the validity.”
Brian Geer IAQG, International Aerospace Quality Group
Said, “If you ever travel on airliners or have family members that do it is important to know that the companies who make hardware have authentic certificates, so when we send out our auditors in the aerospace industry to look at companies that are going to build hardware for us, having a database to look that up would be one very clean and simple way of doing it.”
Marie-Claude Quentin, Global Food Safety Initiative
Said, “At GSFI we are very interested in the initiative by the IAF for the development of a database. Our members as well as the regulators we work with, always ask about a reliable point of contact where they can research information on certification and certified sites. And that database has to be global so that you can query any site in the world, not only in your country or region of activity.”
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