Why do companies change their ISO certification body?

Companies change certification body when the service around the certificate gets in the way of using it. Customers check the certificate. The registrar is the organization that keeps the audits moving. When that work slips, a company with a valid certificate can transfer it.

What usually prompts the call?

• Surveillance dates that keep moving, or an auditor who is named only when the window is almost closed.
• Fees that rise at renewal with no change in scope, sites, or headcount.
• An auditor who does not know the work, and no route to a different one.
• Several certificates split across bodies, so the company hosts two surveillance seasons.
• A body that has dropped the standard, lost the sector, or told clients it is leaving the market.
• Slow answers in a week when a tender needs a confirmation.

None of those reasons requires a new management system. They are reasons to move a certificate that already exists. How the move works is in how to transfer. The order of steps is in how to change certification body.

Which reasons fail as a transfer?

Leaving in order to abandon an open major nonconformity fails. Leaving in order to step around a suspension fails. A certificate that was never accredited fails. Those files are audited as new certifications. The boundary is in suspended or expired certificates and in open nonconformities.

A body that is losing its accreditation is a special case. There may still be a certificate, and there may no longer be an accredited one to recognize. Say that on the application. See when a certification body loses accreditation.

What do you get by moving through IAF Consultancy?

You get a written offer that states the scope, the timing, and the price before a visit is booked, quickly enough to use while the current certificate is still in date. Transfer from another body is a choice on the application, so the request is the job itself.

IAF Consultancy audits. SMG, accredited by IAS under MSCB-153, makes the certification decision and issues the certificate. Certificates that are currently split across bodies can be named on one application. That option is in transferring several certificates together.