Accreditation is a voluntary submission of an accredited entity to be recognised by the third independent and competent party – accreditation body (in this case by IRACAB). The basic purpose of the accreditation is the stronger level of trust towards the accredited entities. All applicants for the accreditation need to undergo the accreditation proces in which only those who meet all the criterias can succeed and obtain the IRACAB accreditation.
IRACAB brings a new way of accreditation. Besides the traditional accreditation it offeres so called biaccreditation system. Therefore IRACAB is able to provide worldwide accreditation in the sphere of management systems to:
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certification bodies – individual auditors
If a certification body has IRACAB accreditation, it becomes an affiliate of IRACAB and hence has all Rights and Obligations of the IRACAB Affiliates. Furthermore, all IRACAB accredited entities are obliged to adhere to the Terms and Conditions of the IRACAB Accreditation.
Organizations
Certification organizations may only use the auditors and experts that meet IRACAB Competence Criteria for Auditors and Experts during for performing audits at the place of business of the company to be certified.
Accreditation / Reaccreditation process
Accreditation/reaccreditation is a voluntary affiliation of a certification body to IRACAB based on the application of the certification body. The steps to getting affiliated /accredited and conditions of keeping the affiliation /accreditation are described in the following diagram:
Following steps are repeated annually during the 5-year period of the accreditation that begins by issuing the accreditation documents.
Every applicant may appeal against the IRACAB decisions according the conditions for Claims, complaints and appeals against IRACAB.
Any amendment of the accreditation scope is performed by the same process as the accreditation process. However, the end date of validity of the amended accreditation documents remains the same as that of the original accreditation documents.
Individual auditors
IRACAB brings the world unique opportunity for individual auditors who want to skip certification organisations and provide direct certification. In order to keep the high standards of the issued certificates all auditor who provide certification audits under the direct supervision of IRACAB have to meet IRACAB Competence Criteria for Auditors. Based on the application the applicants are requested to send required information on their competence. Once IRACAB approves their competence and issues the accreditation certificate, these auditors can conduct certification audits.
Furthermore, after the audit the IRACAB accredited individual auditors send the audit documentation to IRACAB and IRACAB issues certificate to the client instead of the certification body. Such procedure is necessary in order to guarantee the independence of the assessment.
Accreditation process of individual auditors follows the same steps as the accreditation process of certification organisations.