BRING MEANING BACK TO CERTIFICATION

Yesterday (August 19, 2006), I attended a meet of Management System Consultants organized by the leading certification agency of India, Det Norske Veritas AS (DNV). I was pleasantly surprised to see a very large number of consultants present at the meet. It seems that DNV officers have done a very good job to motivate consultants to attend the meet. No doubt, a very effective and efficient organization of such a gathering. DNV deserves congratulations for this.

During presentation on DNV policies, commitments and variety of services, its Country Manager Mr. Krishan Kumar made a thought-provoking statement, "Bring Meaning Back To Certification". What a nice thought. He said all in such a small statement. Management system certification scenerio in India has changed in last few years. I, like many other consultants, have been disturbed about loosing the meaning of certification in the race of competition. There are many reasons for this downfall. A sincere effort is needed on the part of consultants, certification agencies, accreditation bodies and the client companies to put the certification movement back on the right track.

I have attended many such meets organized by DNV on various old and emerging management systems. Such meets serve a very usefull purpose of disseminating information and knowledge, so vital for quality upgradation of system development and certifcation process. It was promised by Mr. Kumar and District Manager, Mr. P. J. Singh to hold more such meets. I hope that other certification bodies should also take a que from this and start organizing such meets. Some time back BSI has also organized such a meet.

Coming back to that thought-provoking statement, I like to put up a question to myself and others, how to go about it? Let us all try to find out the answer. Are you the game friends?