Next Generation Risk Based Certification

Organizations are no longer only measured by what happens within their walls or on the bottom line. Your stakeholders (interested parties) expect that you manage the full impact of your operations – social, economic and environment. Organizations have always faced and mitigated risk. But a more complex business environment provides a broader set of demands. Certification audits using our Next Generation Risk Based Certification methodology (an evolution of the Risk Based CertificationTM)will improve the ability to use an existing management system to help you navigate this context.

A well-functioning quality management system certified to ISO 9001 is a great start building sustainable business performance. It can help you ensure on-time delivery, zero defects, and reduce waste, for example. An occupational health and safety system help you ensure worker safety, lower sick-leave and reduce number of accidents. 

Next Generation Risk Based Certification* can help you start that journey as it facilitates a broader view to identify the most critical risks that could impact your business objectives. Based upon this understanding, we can focus the audit on what matters most to you and how well your management system supports you in managing these risks. 

Get more out of your certification

Next Generation Risk Based Certification still follows the PLAN – DO – CHECK – ACT cycle. But building sustainable business performance requires that you take a broader view, inside and outside your organisation, to understand all relevant risks that could impact your business objectives and incorporate these in the audit to get more knowledge on the performance of your management system.

The first step is to UNDERSTAND your organisation and its context.  This includes to identify your long-term business targets, the most relevant stakeholders (interested parties), both internal and external, that make demands on your management system and your most critical risks preventing you from reaching your long-term business target. 

You should also to consider which risks could prevent you from reaching each of the long-term business targets and which your management system could help you manage.  

Based upon this, at the opening meeting you and your auditor are now better positioned to discuss and PRIORITIZE your most critical risks and where to focus the audit. 

The focus areas should reflect your  long-term business targets, and thus what matters the most to your organization and business objectives. Together you will DEFINE 1-3 focus area(s) for at the audit.  

This is done at the same time as checking compliance with your selected standard(s), such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 or FSSC 22000. The focus area(s) provide structure to the audit, allowing us to assess what matters most to you, while auditing that your management system meets the requirements of your selected standard(s). 

This is done without added cost or time. The immediate output is the audit REPORT which will includes list of findings, focus area performance and the Management Summary for a quick insight on what is most important for you to use toward your management team. 

What you learn from the audit can help you IMPROVE your management system. It will help you identify mitigating actions to a broader set of challenges – operational challenges today but also more long-term objectives, thus laying a foundation for sustainable business performance and improve your ability to respond to stakeholder demands.

What do you get?

Next Generation Risk Based Certification is designed to help you get more out of every audit and start building sustainable business performance.

• Broader view of your most critical risks, enabling your management system to help you mitigate them. 
• A highly skilled, experienced auditor trained to focus the audit on matters that are most important to you, in parallel with checking compliance to selected standard(s).
• A certificate, of course.
• An audit report with insight on how well your management system supports the selected focus areas. 
• Knowledge that can help you improve your management system’s ability to support your long-term business targets and thus sustainable business performance.
• A head-start on concepts in ISO’s High Level Structure for management systems, expected to be part of ISO 9001:2015, for example.

*Risk Based Certification is a registered EU trademark of DNV GL AS.