What Steps Should Be Taken If Iso 17024 Documentation Is Found To Be Non-compliant?

By Author: Emma
Total Articles: 30
Comment this article

ISO 17024 is an international standard that specifies the criteria to be fulfilled in the certification of personnel. Naturally, if the ISO 17024 documentation of your organization is frail, it needs to take quick corrective steps on a proper systematic basis. Here are the steps to take when there is non-compliance with ISO 17024 documents:

Identify the Non-Compliance Issue: The first point is understanding the area of non-compliance. You must go through the audit or assessment report carefully so that you can identify which requirements of ISO 17024 are not satisfied by your documentation.

Assess the Impact: What effect does noncompliance have on your process of certification? It addresses the issue of whether it will be a threat to credibility, the integrity of assessment for personnel, and legal aspects. The assessment would enable prioritization of corrective measures.

Get Key Stakeholders Involved: This includes informing quality managers, certification bodies, and executive management representatives in the buying organization. That way, the corrective actions will be synchronized clearly with the ...
... relevant stakeholders.

Formulate a Corrective Action Plan: Develop a corrective action plan for all the non-compliance issues, listing all the steps required to correct the problem, responsible parties, deadlines, and required resources.

Revision of Documentation: Revised documentation must be updated to
conform with the ISO 17024 standard. Modification includes procedure, policy, or record updating with standards, accurate, complete, and compliant with the standard.

Training Officer: Training usually leads to non-compliance. Therefore, additional training for staff on ISO 17024 requirements should be given, especially those involved in the documentation, audit, and certification processes.

Enforcement of Corrective Actions: Start implementing those plans on the corrective actions that you have drawn up in your action plan. It might include rewording policies, decompactions the human resource competency base, or enhancing record keeping.

Monitor Progress: Create a loop through which the progress of correctives will be followed through time. Assure that all changes are in motion undertaken and implemented on time.

Internal Audit: Carry out an internal audit to determine that the non-conformances have been completely rectified. This would also help to ensure that no new problems have developed during the remedial process.

Notification to Certification Body: Inform the ISO 17024 certification body about the corrective actions that have been taken. In some cases, they may need to re-assess your documentation to make sure the criteria for renewing certification are met.

Continuous Improvement: Finally, put into practice a process for continuous monitoring and improvement that would guarantee that an organization is compliant with ISO 17024 in the future. Routine checks and audits should form part of your general quality management practice.

After such action is taken, it ends up being important to investigate the existence of a non-conformity against ISO 17024 documents and, subsequently, initiate any corrective action required to determine the non-conformance and its effects and involve other stakeholders in this regard. Furthermore, corrective action plans need to be developed, along with documentation amendments and staff training. To track the success of these corrective actions, data from subsequent internal audits should be analyzed. Last but not least, an effective mechanism for notifying the certification body and establishing a method for continuous improvement will take care of continued compliance with the standards set forth by ISO 17024 in the ultimate interest of maintaining the sanctity of the certification process.