DA bureau awarded ISO certification

A Department of Agriculture (DA) bureau has been awarded the prestigious ISO certification for its quality management system (QMS).

Given the ISO 9001:2000 certification was the DA Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR).

ISO (International Standardization Organization) is a worldwide federation of national standard bodies (ISO member bodies). ISO 9001:2000 is a comprehensive and standardized measurement of an organization’s commitment to the delivery of quality service. It is a universally recognized certification of an organization’s quality management system.

The ISO 9001:2000 certification was awarded to BAR at the recent BAR-organized National Agriculture and Fisheries Technology Forum and Seminar Series during which mature technologies were presented to the participants, who included representatives from industry and the research and academic sectors and other stakeholders.

It attests the BAR has established and applied a quality management system for consolidation, strengthening, monitoring, and evaluation of agriculture and fisheries research and development.

The certification was presented to then Agriculture Secretary Domingo F. Panganiban and BAR director Nicomedes P. Eleazar by Carmina Esperon, business development manager of TUV Philippines, Inc., and Joseph Server, president of the Joseph Service and Associates, Inc.

TUV Philippines is a multinational certification and inspection body that provides inspection, certification, valuation, validation, training, and testing services. TUV or Technischer Uberwachungs Verein (Technical Inspection Association) originated in Germany.

Last July, auditors from TUV Philippines, contracted as third party certification auditors, subjected the BAR divisions and units to a procedural and documentation audit.

During the certification process, BAR staff members were trained on introduction to quality; interpretation of the ISO 9001:2000 standards; internal quality auditing; documenting the quality system on policies, procedures, and work instructions; and documen and data control.

Selected BAR staff members were also provided hands-on training on the conduct of an independent audit by performing a pre-assessment of the quality management system.

Joseph Server and Associates, Inc. was contracted to provide the training on management systems. The audit’s results led TUV Philippines to recommend BAR for ISO 9001:2000 certification. — RAF