Conditions for Use of Logos & Certificates - Multi Site Organisation

INTRODUCTION

QUALITY ASIA CERTIFICATIONS Pvt. Ltd. is a legal entity incorporated under the Companies Act 2013, in India. The main objective of the company is to offer independent third-party certification to organisations against various Management System Standards; (e.g. ISO 9001:2015: Quality Management System & ISO 14001:2015: Environment Management System). QUALITY ASIA CERTIFICATIONS Pvt. Ltd is directly accredited by NABCB (National Accreditation Body for Certification Bodies under Quality Council of India).

CRITERIA FOR GRANTING CERTIFICATION OF A MULTI-SITE ORGANISATION

GENERAL RULES AND REGULATION- (DOCUMENT PD-02)

The rules & regulations specified in the document, PD-02 shall be applicable to all organisations applying for certification to QUALITY ASIA.

RULES AND REGULATION - MULTI SITE

For multi-site organisations the rules & regulations specified in this document, PD-04 shall be additionally applicable. All organisations seeking multi-site certification shall essentially comply with these.

ELIGIBILITY

Multi-site organisation is defined as an organisation having an identified central function (central office) at which certain activities are planned, controlled or managed and a network of local offices and branches (sites) at which such activities are fully or partially carried out.

A multi-site organisation need not be a unique legal entity, but all sites shall have a legal or contractual link with the central office and be subject to a common management system. The management system is laid down, established and subject to continuous surveillance and internal audits by the central office. This means that the central office has rights to ensure that the sites implement corrective actions when needed at any site.

The processes at all the sites have to be substantially of the same kind and have to be operated to similar methods and procedures. Where some of the sites under consideration conduct similar, but fewer processes than others, they may be eligible for inclusion provided that the site or sites, which conduct most processes or critical processes, are subject to full audit. All the sites should be in the same country.

Organizations, which conduct their business through linked processes in different locations, are also eligible for certification under multi-site. Where processes in each location are not similar but are clearly linked, the sampling plan shall include at least one example of each processes conducted by the organisation (e.g. fabrication of electronic component in one location, assembly of the same components – by the same company in several other locations)

The organisation’s management system shall be under a centrally controlled and administered plan and be subject to central management review. All the relevant sites including the central office shall be subject to the organisation’s internal audit program and all sites have been audited prior to certification audit.

The central office has established the management system in accordance with the relevant ISO or other standard and the whole organisation meets the requirements of the standard including relevant legal regulations.

The organisation should demonstrate its ability to collect and analyse data (system documentation and changes, management review, complaints, corrective actions, internal audit, legal requirements etc.) from all sites including the central office and its authority and also demonstrate its authority and ability to initiate organisation changes if required.

If all the sites of an organisation where the activity subject to certification is performed are not ready to be submitted for certification at the same time, the organisation shall be required to inform QUALITY ASIA in advance of the sites that it wants to be included in the certification and those which are to be excluded.

NONCONFORMITIES

Whenever any non-conformity is found at an individual site, either through the organisation’s internal auditing or auditing by QUALITY ASIA, the organisation shall investigate whether it leads to a system deficiency affecting all other sites or limited to the particular site only. If it is found a system deficiency correction and corrective action should be performed both at central office and at the individual sites. If the corrective action is limited to only the site where the nonconformity has been reported, the organisation should be able to demonstrate to QUALITY ASIA the justification for limiting its follow up corrective action.

At the time of the decision-making process, if any site has nonconformity pending the certification shall be denied to the whole network pending satisfactory corrective action.

It shall not be admissible that, in order to overcome the obstacle raised by the existence of non-conformity at a single site, the organisation seeks to exclude from the scope the “problematic site” site during the certification process. Such exclusion can only be agreed in advance as stated in section 2.3.8.

CERTIFICATION DOCUMENT

QUALITY ASIA shall issue the certificate after completing the procedural requirements (PD-02) and the sites included in the certificate are either individually audited or audited as per a sampling scheme as defined in QUALITY ASIA procedure.

QUALITY ASIA shall withdraw the entire certificate if the central office or any of the sites does not fulfil the necessary provisions for the maintenance of the certification.

As the list of sites need to be updated by QUALITY ASIA, the organisation shall inform QUALITY ASIA about the closure of any of the sites covered by the certification. Failure to provide such information will be considered by QUALITY ASIA as a misuse of the certification and QUALITY ASIA shall initiate appropriate action for suspension as specified in PD-02.

QUALITY ASIA shall grant additional sites to the existing certification either through the routine surveillance, special audit or re-certification audit.

SAMPLING

The number of sites selected for certification shall be based on the norms framed by QUALITY ASIA to meet the requirements of the applicable standard.

It is not necessary to select the sites before starting the audit process, but can also be done after the audit of the central office.