Certification Process

An LSP’s certification process usually starts with the company’s own internal process review, and an internal conformity check against the standard to be certified to. During this stage, existing documentation for the organisation’s processes and workflows is reviewed and, if necessary, amended, or the processes and workflows documented if no documentation exists already.

Some organisations employ an external consultant to help them at this stage, or discuss the questions arising from their internal conformity check with someone who has already gone through the process. Many auditors are happy to look the organisation’s documentation over even before the certification audit and may offer advice or a gap analysis tool which can be used to finalise workflows and documentation and some offer this as a pre-certification audit at a cost.

A certification audit is performed by an auditor appointed by the LSP wishing its relevant language service to be certified.

To conform to the ISO conformity assessment standards, the auditor will carry out a first stage electronic audit, where the auditor reviews the organisation’s relevant documentation and addresses any issues they find in a first stage audit report.

The successful electronic audit is followed by a second stage on-site audit assessing the extent to which the system reviewed at the first stage describing a system conforming to the standard is actually performing in accordance with that system. One method of performing this assessment is to track the trail of performance provided by the documentation of live samples taken from the organisation’s past projects. If all goes well a final second stage certification audit report is issued by the auditor to the review and awarding committee recommending the organisation be certified as conforming to the standard.

The last stage in the formal auditing process is the certification committee’s decision, and final administration, including, if all has still gone well, the supply of a certificate of conformity expressing its scope of application. The scope of application explains to which of the LSPs services the certificate applies and those to which it does not apply. This information should also be provided on the certification body's web site to which the general public will have access.

There are two annual surveillance audits of differing parts of the service, which the organisation must schedule for, and a full re-certification audit every fourth year, usually with the same auditor.

There is no central database of certification bodies for certification to the various ISO language service industry standards. In the UK, some of the larger generally accredited auditors offer certification to some ISO language service industry standards which have not yet been added to their list of accredited products or service certification services. There are also smaller auditors that specialise in the language industry and its standards.