What is the difference between “Certification”, “Registration” and “Accreditation”?
According to the standardized definitions, they are not quite the same thing. In the context of ISO 9001:2000 or ISO 14001:2004, certification refers to the issuing of written assurance (the certificate) by an independent external body that has audited your management system and verified that it conforms to the requirements specified in the standard. Registration means that the auditing body then records your certification in its client register. In the ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001:2004 contexts, “certified” and “registered” are equivalent in meaning and you can use either term.
Product certification : Applies to an organization whose product or service can be defined in terms of a standard or specification. Certification is performed by a third party qualified to declare that the product or service meets the specification. However, laboratories are not “certified” to ISO/IEC 17025, because certification does not entail assessment of the laboratory’s quality system (and because certification bodies are not otherwisr qualified to do so). Self-certification : Applies to any organization whose product or service can be defined in terms of a standard or specification. Self-certification is achieved when the organization declares their product or service meets the specification. For example, any laboratory may self-declare that its calibrations or tests conform to ISO/IEC 17025. Whether they actually do is up to the client to accept or otherwise determine. Quality system registration : Entails having the quality system assessed by third-party quality professionals
