Certification is when a certification body gives written assurance that a product, service, process, personnel, organization or management system conforms to specific requirements.
The most well-known examples are the certification of quality management systems and environmental management systems as conforming, respectively, to the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards. More than a million business and public sector organizations worldwide have had their management systems certified to one or both of these standards. Newer management standards that also allow for certification address food safety (ISO 22000), energy management (ISO 50001) and information security (ISO/IEC 27001).
Product certification
... may consist of initial testing of a product combined with assessment of its supplier’s quality management system. This may be followed up by testing of samples from the factory and/or the open market. Other product certification schemes comprise initial testing and surveillance testing, while still others rely on the testing of a sample product - this is known as type testing. The type of certification scheme chosen will depend on factors such as the degree of potential risk to consumers and users of the product.
Personnel certification
... has become an important element of verifying the competence of an increasingly mobile and global workforce, underscoring the value of industry-recognized credentials that can be carried across national borders.
System certification
A management system is the way in which an organization manages the inter-related parts of its business in order to achieve its objectives. These objectives can relate to a number of different topics, including product or service quality, operational efficiency, environmental performance, health and safety in the workplace and many more.