Thank you Stacey for the article. It makes some important distinctions and will help many readers make the appropriate claim in their advertising.

I think it might have been a bit clearer if you had left ISO 9001 companies (those audited and appproved by a Registrar) with just the statement that they are "registered". Discussing "certified/certification" may lead them down a wrong path. I'm glad you pointed out that "accreditation" includes the requirement that an organization be proved competent. I like ISO 17025 as a better example (than Registrars) of accreditation because many manufacturing companies rely on ISO 17025 accredited labs to meet their test and calibration requirements. ISO 17025 includes both requirements for a management system and for proving competance through audits and proficiency testing. But then I am partial to this example because I manage an ISO 17025 accredited calibration laboratory.

Again, thank you for a valuable article.

Jack Dearing

Stacey,

Great article. We see this misuse of terms quite often from clients and competitors. It seems like I'm correcting people all of the time and I'm starting to get a complex about it. Oh well, my therapist is happy anyway. Seriously, it's become somewhat of a pet peeve for me. Especially the use of the term "ISO Certified". I'll refer folks to your article to help clear the air about this subject. Keep fighting the good fight of Quality!

A very good article. Just a few comments.

1. The problems mentioned in the article such as wrong usage of terms "ISO certified", ISO Certification and confusion amongst the terms Accreditation, Certification and Registration have persisted ever since ISO 9000 audits became "popular". It seems only Quality/Process Improvement professionals seem to worry about the incorrectness and distinctions. What is sad is that even many in senior and middle management positions don't seem to bother too much about this.

2. The article makes very good points about how to leverage certification to good effect. A few more about how not to go about promoting certification would also have been useful.

3. There is one more very important avenue for the organization that successfully complete the audits to exploit. It is showcasing the benefits that the organization has reaped that can be clearly attributed to certification. This can be utilized periodically both internally within the organization for launching new improvement programmes and externally with clients.