Surveillance & Re-certification Assessment Dates

SQA Advisory Number 1

Original date: June 11, 2004
Revision date: April 7, 2005
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Introduction:

All organizations certified to one of the ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 related standards must maintain their certification. The process of maintaining certification is represented by surveillance and re-certification assessments. Although the maintenance requirement calls for annual assessments, these may be divided into two parts. This approach is referred to as semi-annual assessments. Conceptually, annual assessments are 12 months apart, and semi-annual assessments are 6 months apart. However, in the case of annual surveillances, the first audit will occur 8 months after the last day of the initial certification, followed by audits on a 12-month frequency. This allows time for all administrative details to be handled prior to issuing a new certificate at the end of each 3-year certificate period.

Discussion:

In recent months, changes to the rules for accreditation and approval have caused SQA to reconsider the approach to target dates and target windows for surveillance and re-certification assessments. Previously, SQA considered a three-month window and date targets tied to the “original date” of the certificate to be acceptable, however, this has changed.

SQA Position:

For all existing certifications, SQA is changing this three-month (approximate ninety-day) window to a two-month (approximate sixty-day) window. Furthermore the targeted date for surveillances and recertification audits will be based on the last day of the Initial Assessment audit (i.e., the day of the closing meeting). For example, if the last day of the initial assessment was March 15, semi-annual surveillance and re-certification assessments may be scheduled during the two-month windows of August 15 - October 15 and February 15 - April 15; for annual surveillance, the two-month windows will be October 15 – December 15.

All SQA auditors have been informed of this change and will be scheduling future surveillance and re-certification assessments based on these directions. Existing assessment dates may remain so, however, after July 31, 2005, all surveillance and re-certification assessments must be targeted on the basis of the initial assessment audit and within the applicable two-month window. Deviations are permitted only with approval of the SQA operations manager or vice president.

With all surveillances scheduled from the last day of the initial assessment audit, targeting is as follows. In the first 3-year period, annual surveillances would be scheduled on the 8th, 20th and 32nd months and for semi-annual surveillances, the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th months. In each case, if a 3-year certificate renewal is desired, the last audit would become a re-certification audit. Note that no audit is required at the 36th month. This pattern follows for all subsequent 3-year certificates.

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