Case studies
Case studies
How a certification file progresses, from application to decision.
Illustrative example. The organisation is fictional and used to show how a certification file progresses.
Food manufacturing · ISO 9001
A spice manufacturer's path to certification
| Organisation | Fictional spice and dehydrated-vegetable processor, single site, two shifts, about 176 people at peak season |
| Challenge | A retail customer required ISO 9001 within a year |
| Stage 1 | Showed the claimed exclusion of design and development was not justified (new private-label recipes had been developed). Scope and audit time were revised before Stage 2. |
| Stage 2 | One major nonconformity: metal-detector rejects were not controlled on the evening shift. Two minor nonconformities on calibration and design verification. |
| Corrective action | Root cause traced to controls designed around day-shift supervision. Locked reject bins, bilingual procedures, shift training and daily review were verified on a follow-up visit. |
| Review & decision | The technical reviewer sent the report back once to correct the scope wording; an independent decision maker then granted certification with conditions for the first surveillance. |
| Lesson | Controls must work on every shift, and the scope must match what the organisation actually does. |
