Standards and the certification schemes developed to assess conformity can regulate either the process through which a product is produced or the product itself. Although process certification is meant to influence the quality of the product, process certification does not provide any guarantee about the quality of the product. The ISO points out this difference very strongly, recommending that marks stating the conformity of the business to process standards should not appear on product labels or packaging, because this would give consumers the impression that the product is certified as conforming to a specific set of standards, which in the case of process certification would be untrue.

Standards and the certification schemes developed to assess conformity can regulate either the process through which a product is produced or the product itself. Although process certification is meant to influence the quality of the product, process certification does not provide any guarantee about the quality of the product. The ISO points out this difference very strongly, recommending that marks stating the conformity of the business to process standards should not appear on product labels or packaging, because this would give consumers the impression that the product is certified as conforming to a specific set of standards, which in the case of process certification would be untrue.

November 20, 2011

July 15, 2024