The bigger your global plans, the greater your need to independently verify the quality of your products. Independent testing anticipates and identifies issues at an early stage. By resolving them promptly, you keep costs down and avoid delays. Most importantly, it protects your reputation from product recalls and costly lawsuits.

The consumers want to know more about product-specific characteristics which distinguish it from similar products. To certify a product means to highlight a product’s explicit and implicit characteristics, and to confirm your company’s commitment towards a constant search for higher standards.

Product certification should not be underrated as a marketing tool, and is a useful business card to introduce your product in a new market niche or to retailers.

The organisation has to identify the characteristics of the product that, once guaranteed, give added value to the product itself. The next step is to plan the production process, documenting the results with the product technical folder. The product technical folder is a company’s document, and therefore confidential. It describes the production and control processes carried out by the company to meet the expected results.

The planning process includes:

• Establishing the needed production processes, and providing resources specific to the product.

• Identifying the required verification, validation, monitoring, inspection, and test activities specific to the product and the criteria for product acceptance.

• Defining the records needed to provide evidence that the processes and resulting product meet applicable requirements.