Are unaccredited certificates valid?
The issuance of unaccredited registration certificates is a hotly debated topic in quality assurance circles, primarily because an unaccredited registration is subject to less scrutiny than an accredited one. An unaccredited certificate issued by an accredited Registrar may well be just as trustworthy as an accredited certificate, although it would not be recognized internationally. Registrars sometimes issue such certificates at the request of companies whose operations make it difficult or costly to comply fully with their chosen standard. (For example, a firm that performs exactly the same processes at a huge number of locations or in several countries might find ISO auditing requirements to be cost-prohibitive. By choosing an unaccredited approach, a smaller number of sites might be sampled at each surveillance, thereby saving the company a great deal of money while achieving essentially the same results. A registration certificate issued by an unaccredited registrar, however, woul
