System Certification

GHANA CERTIFICATION BODY (GCB) - SYSTEM CERTIFICATION DEPARTMENT

INTRODUCTION
GCB System Certification
We are a service provider of Quality Management Systems (QMS) and Certification to industry, utilizing the Ghana Standards Board’s (GSB) brand name. We offer two certification schemes that address the quality of an organization’s service or product, namely, System and Product Certification. We have the goal of getting and keeping our clients at the forefront of international technology and managerial practices.

The name GSB is established in the market place and is one of the most recognizable brands in Ghana. Synonymous with quality, reliability and dependability, the GSB mark can be found on anything from pens to a bag of cement, from a complex agro-processing machine to sachet water.  GCB-GSB stands for Quality delivery of service

Details of Products & Services

Systems Certification 
In Systems Certification, we certify that an organization has documented and implemented a management system that complies with a specific national or international systems specification. As the national certifier, we provide an independent assessment of the relevant system to international standards. This verification and resulting certification serves as a testimony to the effectiveness and validity of a pertinent system, and to our commitment to professionalism, quality, safety and good governance.
The Certification Schemes include the following:

1. ISO 9001:2008, Quality management systems-Requirements
2. ISO 14001, Environmental management systems-Requirements with guidance for use
3. HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points), and ISO 22000, Food Safety Management Systems.

These schemes are offered to clients in industries and other businesses.

ISO 9001:2008 Certification Scheme
Why use us as your certification body?

1. We have teams dedicated to auditing Manufacturing and Service Organizations against ISO 9000 requirements. Members of the teams are committed and share a vision of improving service and manufacturing quality levels in Ghana
2. We are experienced in auditing  ISO 9001
3. Auditors take ownership of clients, ensuring customer satisfaction and the confidentiality of client information
4. Auditors are loyal to their clients because they are permanent employees and not merely consultants
5. We can be reached countrywide, leading to cost savings for clients
6. We have a wide variety of expertise which makes it possible to assign audit teams with precisely the required technical expertise
7. Planning and skills are controlled by an extensive database – providing information at our clients’ fingertips

Overview of ISO 9001 Certification 
Increased global competition has led to increasingly more stringent customer expectations with regard to quality.  To be competitive and to maintain good economic performance, service organizations and product suppliers have to employ more effective and efficient systems.

Such systems should result in continual improvements in quality and increased satisfaction of the organization’s customers and other Stakeholders. The ISO 9000 Quality Management series of standards is applicable to four generic categories:

1. Software                      }
2. Hardware                    }    …….production processes
3. Processed materials }
4. Services                      }   ……..service processes

Producers of products

Software, hardware and processed materials
A major purpose of quality management is to improve systems and processes so that continual improvement of quality can be achieved. The International Standards in the ISO 9000 family describe the requirements that quality management systems should encompass, but not how a specific organization implements the requirements. It is not the purpose of these International Standards to enforce uniformity of quality management systems, because needs of organizations vary. The design and implementation of a quality management system must necessarily be influenced by the objectives, products, processes and practices of the organization concerned.

Quality management encompasses all the activities of the overall management function that determines the quality policy, objectives and responsibilities, and implementation thereof.

A quality management system consists of a group or list of guidelines, disciplines and processes that together are aimed at achieving customer satisfaction or continuous improvement.

Service organizations 
We have a section dedicated to auditing service organizations against ISO 9000 requirements. The members of the team are committed and enthusiastic, sharing a vision of improving service quality levels in West Africa. Experience has shown that Service Organizations certified in terms of ISO 9000 are internally and externally more focused on satisfying their customers. Implementation involves the following processes:

1. Identifying the core processes within the organization
2. Standardizing the service performance process throughout the organization – helped by preparing a Service Blueprint depicting service events and processes in a flow chart, with the object of recognizing potential service fail points and in so doing controlling the processes
3. Identifying possible areas of weakness or opportunity for improvement
4. Obtaining staff buy-in to the new systems and transferring responsibilities/ownership to staff to ensure customer satisfaction
5. Monitoring customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction through suggestion, corrective and preventative approach, continuous improvement, customer surveys and comparative shopping
6. Identifying the level of investment required for good human resources selection and training
7. General quality management system principles

To lead and operate an organization successfully, it is necessary to manage it in a systematic and visible manner. The eight quality management principles have been produced with executive managers as its target users. They provide a framework to guide organizations towards improved performance, are derived from the experience and knowledge of internationally respected experts, and are aimed at helping users achieve sustained organizational success. The concepts embodied in these principles form the basis for the quality management system standards within the ISO 9000:2000 family.

Principle 1 – Customer focus: Organizations depend on their customers and therefore should understand current and future customer needs, meet customer requirements and strive to exceed customer expectations

Principle 2 – Leadership: Leaders establish unity of purpose and direction of an organization. They should create and maintain the internal environment in which people can become fully involved in achieving the organization’s objectives

Principle 3 – Involvement of people: People at all levels are the essence of an organization and their full involvement enables their abilities to be used for the organization’s benefit

Principle 4 – Process approach: A desired result is achieved more efficiently when related resources and activities are managed as a process

Principle 5 – System approach to management: Identifying, understanding and managing a system of interrelated processes for a given objective improves the organization’s effectiveness and efficiency

Principle 6 – Continual improvement: Continual improvement should be a permanent objective of the organization

Principle 7 – Factual approach to decision making: Effective decisions are based on the analysis of data and information

Principle 8 – Mutually beneficial supplier relationships: An organization and its suppliers are interdependent and a mutually beneficial relationship enhances the ability of both to create value

For an organization to function effectively and efficiently, it has to identify and manage numerous linked activities. An activity using resources, and managed in order to enable the transformation of inputs into outputs, is considered as a process. Often the output from one process directly forms the input to the next.

ISO 22000, Food Safety Management Systems/HACCP Certification. 
A food safety management system is defined as a set of interrelated or interacting elements to establish policy and objectives and to achieve those objectives used to direct and control an organization with regard to food safety.

Overview of  ISO 22000/HACCP  Certification 
The framework for conducting world trade in a more open and transparent manner was laid down after the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations. However, exporting enterprises still face a growing number of regulations, especially for food and agricultural products. This has resulted from concerns over food safety arising out of health risks associated with, for example, mad cow disease, Sudan red dyes and E.coli outbreaks. Consequently, a number of countries and retailer organizations have established requirements for the development and auditing of food safety systems in national or private standards.

There are more than 20 different schemes worldwide for auditing suppliers in the food sector; this plethora of schemes poses a challenge to developing countries, especially least developed countries, since agriculture plays a prominent role in their economy and exports.

ISO 22000 provides one federative international solution as it harmonizes the requirements for food safety management systems. It is increasingly accepted internationally, with over 35 countries having adopted it as a national standard following its publication in September 2005.

All types of organization within the food supply chain, including feed producers – primary producers, food manufacturers, transport and storage operators, retailers and food service outlets – can use it to ensure that there is no weak link in the food supply chain.

ISO 22000 incorporates the requirements of the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) system developed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. HACCP has increasingly become a mandatory requirement in the markets of various countries since the 1990s, most notably for non-farm food businesses in the EU since January 2006.

As ISO 22000 is an auditable standard, certified companies can demonstrate their compliance to HACCP. Certification to ISO 22000 could facilitate acceptance by global food retailers and food manufacturers as it also covers the requirements of key standards developed by various global food retailer systems.

ISO 22000 has been aligned with ISO 9001:2000, Quality management systems – Requirements. Part 14 of the ISO 22000 Toolkit. Checklist explains the similarities between both standards. If an organization is already certified to ISO 9001, 1, it should have in place most of the management system requirements set out in ISO 22000:2005. Its task will then be to develop and implement the food safety elements of the new standard.