If one organization is partly or fully owned by another, they are parts of the same corporation. In this case, the answer is yes, one ISO 9001 certificate of registration can cover multiple facilities of or the entire corporation, whether it has 2 or 2,000 facilities. The real issue is whether the corporation is ready to institute a single QMS for the entire organization.
If there are actually two separate corporations involved, you need to discuss the specifics of your situation with the registrar to be used, as the other respondent recommended. It is not that a single ISO 9001 QMS cannot be applied to two or more separate corporations and covered by a single certificate, it is more a question of whether two or more corporations can really achieve an effective QMS if it needs to cover different types of organizations. How is top management of "the organization" supposed to conduct management review and pursue continual improvement of the QMS and the product? Will one corporation permit the other's internal auditors examine its documentation and evaluate the effectiveness of corrective and preventive actions, plus customer complaints and more? It could be possible to accomplish this, but it may not be practical.
There is a misperception that the big expense with ISO 9001 registration is the physical certificate of registration. The real expenses are the implementation of the QMS and the external costs from training of employees, use of consultants and software when required and the auditor days required to assess the conformance of the QMS. If two separate corporations are to be covered by a single certificate, there may be little reduction in many of the costs and the complexity of the system may actually make registrar costs higher.
Again, it all depends on the relationship of the two "corporations" and whether one QMS will be effective in meeting their needs. If multinational corporations with multiple facilities in many companies can institute an effective QMS covering all their operations, it clearly can be effective.
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qdigest 2/1/2001
If one organization is partly or fully owned by another, they are parts of the same corporation. In this case, the answer is yes, one ISO 9001 certificate of registration can cover multiple facilities of or the entire corporation, whether it has 2 or 2,000 facilities. The real issue is whether the corporation is ready to institute a single QMS for the entire organization.
If there are actually two separate corporations involved, you need to discuss the specifics of your situation with the registrar to be used, as the other respondent recommended. It is not that a single ISO 9001 QMS cannot be applied to two or more separate corporations and covered by a single certificate, it is more a question of whether two or more corporations can really achieve an effective QMS if it needs to cover different types of organizations. How is top management of "the organization" supposed to conduct management review and pursue continual improvement of the QMS and the product? Will one corporation permit the other's internal auditors examine its documentation and evaluate the effectiveness of corrective and preventive actions, plus customer complaints and more? It could be possible to accomplish this, but it may not be practical.
There is a misperception that the big expense with ISO 9001 registration is the physical certificate of registration. The real expenses are the implementation of the QMS and the external costs from training of employees, use of consultants and software when required and the auditor days required to assess the conformance of the QMS. If two separate corporations are to be covered by a single certificate, there may be little reduction in many of the costs and the complexity of the system may actually make registrar costs higher.
Again, it all depends on the relationship of the two "corporations" and whether one QMS will be effective in meeting their needs. If multinational corporations with multiple facilities in many companies can institute an effective QMS covering all their operations, it clearly can be effective.
dougs 2/1/2001
I've seen similar registration schemes. However best thing to do is give detailed scenario to your Registrar, let them advise you.