Company type | Standards Organization |
---|---|
Industry | Assessment, Certification |
Founded | 1985 |
Headquarters | Frankfurt am Main, Germany |
Area served | Global |
Key people | Michael Drechsel (MD) Ingo Ruebenach (MD) |
Products | Assessment and Certification of Management Systems and Processes |
Revenue | 145 Mio. EUR (concern, 2018) [1] |
Number of employees | 2500 |
Website |
DQS Holding GmbH based in Frankfurt am Main is the holding company of the worldwide DQS Group. The group provides assessments and certifications of management systems and processes of any type.
DQS was founded in 1985 in Berlin and was the first German certification body. [2] [3] The aim of the founding partners, DGQ (German Society for Quality) and DIN (German Institute for Standardization), was mainly to promote the German economy. The foundation overlapped with the publication of the first drafts of the ISO 9000 series of standards, which also include the most important quality standard worldwide today: ISO 9001.
In 1986 DQS became the first certification body in Germany to issue a certificate according to ISO 9001. [4]
After the merger of DQS with the Management Systems Solutions (MSS) division of the American product certification body Underwriters Laboratories Inc. in March 2008, DQS-UL Group is currently one of the world's largest system certification bodies. Since June 2015 the company changed its name to DQS Group.[ citation needed ]
DQS Holding GmbH has more than 85 offices in over 60 countries. DQS Group currently has about 20,000 certified customers[ citation needed ] across almost all industries with approximately 65,000 certified locations in over 130 countries. [5]
The concern employs 814 people and commands 2,500 auditors in 2019 (annual average). Among the largest companies within the group are DQS India.(Bangalore), DQS Inc. (USA), DQS do Brasil Ltd., DQS Japan Inc., DQS Medizinprodukte GmbH (Medical Devices), DQS CFS (sustainability) and DQS GmbH (all Germany). [6]
DQS India
Headquartered in Bangalore Main and with a local offices in Chennai, Pune, Gujarat, DQS India is the largest subsidiary of DQS Holding GmbH.
DQS GmbH in Germany
Headquartered in Frankfurt am Main and with a local offices in Hamburg, DQS GmbH is the largest subsidiary of DQS Holding GmbH.
The group’s services include cross-industry assessments to customer or industry-specific requirements and certifications to national and international standards and specifications.
In addition, the group also offers assessments in the areas of Risk Management Systems, Sustainability, Education, Data Privacy, Business Excellence, Health and Social Services, and Integrated Management Systems.
DQS is a charter and full member of the international certification network IQNet Association which was founded in 1990. The main objective of the currently approx. 40-member global network is the mutual recognition of certificates issued by the member companies. Dr Sied Sadek, former Managing Director of DQS CFS and DQS Middle East, who is now the Managing Director of SQS Deutschland GmbH, pointed out in an interview to share DQS's expertise in the field of CSR reporting and DQS's understanding of the necessity to do so sensitive to the regional and cultural context, in the development process of the Islamic Reporting Initiative (IRI). [7]
A quality management system (QMS) is a collection of business processes focused on consistently meeting customer requirements and enhancing their satisfaction. It is aligned with an organization's purpose and strategic direction. It is expressed as the organizational goals and aspirations, policies, processes, documented information, and resources needed to implement and maintain it. Early quality management systems emphasized predictable outcomes of an industrial product production line, using simple statistics and random sampling. By the 20th century, labor inputs were typically the most costly inputs in most industrialized societies, so focus shifted to team cooperation and dynamics, especially the early signaling of problems via a continual improvement cycle. In the 21st century, QMS has tended to converge with sustainability and transparency initiatives, as both investor and customer satisfaction and perceived quality are increasingly tied to these factors. Of QMS regimes, the ISO 9000 family of standards is probably the most widely implemented worldwide – the ISO 19011 audit regime applies to both and deals with quality and sustainability and their integration.
The ISO 9000 family is a set of five quality management systems (QMS) standards by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that help organizations ensure they meet customer and other stakeholder needs within statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or service. ISO 9000 deals with the fundamentals and vocabulary of QMS, including the seven quality management principles that underlie the family of standards. ISO 9001 deals with the requirements that organizations wishing to meet the standard must fulfill. ISO/TS 9002 offers guidelines for the application of ISO 9001. ISO 9004 gives guidance on achieving sustained organizational success.
The ISO 14000 family of standards by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) relate to environmental management that exists to help organizations (a) minimize how their operations negatively affect the environment ; (b) comply with applicable laws, regulations, and other environmentally oriented requirements; and (c) continually improve in the above.
Quality management ensures that an organization, product or service consistently functions well. It has four main components: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only on product and service quality, but also on the means to achieve it. Quality management, therefore, uses quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve more consistent quality. Quality control is also part of quality management. What a customer wants and is willing to pay for it, determines quality. It is a written or unwritten commitment to a known or unknown consumer in the market. Quality can be defined as how well the product performs its intended function.
ISO/IEC 20000 is the international standard for IT service management. It was developed in 2005 by ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 and revised in 2011 and 2018. It was originally based on the earlier BS 15000 that was developed by BSI Group.
ISO/IEC 17025General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories is the main standard used by testing and calibration laboratories. In most countries, ISO/IEC 17025 is the standard for which most labs must hold accreditation in order to be deemed technically competent. In many cases, suppliers and regulatory authorities will not accept test or calibration results from a lab that is not accredited. Originally known as ISO/IEC Guide 25, ISO/IEC 17025 was initially issued by ISO/IEC in 1999. There are many commonalities with the ISO 9000 standard, but ISO/IEC 17025 is more specific in requirements for competence and applies directly to those organizations that produce testing and calibration results and is based on more technical principles. Laboratories use ISO/IEC 17025 to implement a quality system aimed at improving their ability to consistently produce valid results. Material in the standard also forms the basis for accreditation from an accreditation body.
AS9100 is a widely adopted and standardized quality management system for the aerospace industry. It was released in October, 1999, by the Society of Automotive Engineers and the European Association of Aerospace Industries.
IATF 16949:2016 is a technical specification aimed at the development of a quality management system which provides for continual improvement, emphasizing defect prevention and the reduction of variation and waste in the automotive industry supply chain and assembly process. It is based on the ISO 9001 standard and the first edition was published in June 1999 as ISO/TS 16949:1999. IATF 16949:2016 replaced ISO/TS 16949 in October 2016.
ISO 22000 is a food safety management system by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) which is outcome focused, providing requirements for any organization in the food industry with objective to help to improve overall performance in food safety. These standards are intended to ensure safety in the global food supply chain. The standards involve the overall guidelines for food safety management and also focuses on traceability in the feed and food chain.
ISO 13485Medical devices -- Quality management systems -- Requirements for regulatory purposes is a voluntary standard, published by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for the first time in 1996, and contains a comprehensive quality management system for the design and manufacture of medical devices. The latest version of this standard supersedes earlier documents such as EN 46001 and EN 46002 (1996), the previously published ISO 13485, and ISO 13488.
The British Standards Institution (BSI) is the national standards body of the United Kingdom. BSI produces technical standards on a wide range of products and services and also supplies certification and standards-related services to businesses.
British Approvals Service for Cables is an independent accredited certification body headquartered in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom. Here, the organization's dedicated testing laboratory also operates which is believed to be the largest of its type in Europe. BASEC was established in 1971 and principally provides product certification services for all types of cable and wire, ancillary products and management systems within the cable industry. The organization maintains operations throughout the world including Africa, Middle East, America, Asia and Europe.
The Canadian Welding Bureau is a certification and registration organization for companies involved in the welding of steel structures. Welders in Canada are required to be retested every two years by the Canadian Welding Bureau. The CWB Group was formed in 1947 to administer the then, new W47.1 welding standard for structural steel. The CWB has today expanded its scope well beyond the original structural steel roots and is accredited by the Standards Council of Canada as a Certification Body for the administration of CSA Standards including W47.1, W47.2, W55.3, W186, W178.1 and W48 to industries across Canada and internationally for:
Nigel Howard Croft is a globally recognized authority on quality management and conformity assessment. He retired as Chairman of the ISO Joint Technical Coordination Group for Management System Standards in December 2023 after serving a three-year term, having been appointed by ISO's Technical Management Board in December 2020. During his tenure, he coordinated the deployment of the ISO London Declaration on Climate Action into all ISO Management System Standards, requiring organizations that implement these standards to determine the extent to which climate change can affect their results and the ways in which their activities can have a impact on climate change. This can then lead to the implementation of risk-based adaptation and mitigation strategies. Dr Croft was previously Chair of the ISO Technical Committee TC 176/SC 2 from February 2010 until December 2018, with overall responsibility for the ISO 9001 standard, used worldwide as a basis for certification of quality management systems, and the ISO 9004 guidelines standard aimed at improving organisational performance, among others. In 2019 and 2020 he led the revision of "Annex SL" of the ISO Directives, that forms the basis for over 40 management system standards including those on environmental management, Occupational Health and Safety, Information Security, Anti-bribery, Food Safety, Artificial Intelligence and many more.
ISO/TC 176 is Technical Committee 176 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), responsible for Quality management and quality assurance - the ISO 9000 family of standards.
ISO 50001Energy management systems - Requirements with guidance for use, is an international standard created by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It supports organizations in all sectors to use energy more efficiently through the development of an energy Management System. The standard specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving an energy management system, whose purpose is to enable an organization to follow a systematic approach in achieving continual improvement of energy performance, including energy efficiency, energy security, energy use and consumption.
BA 9000 Body Armor Quality Management System Requirements were established by the National Institute of Justice as a quality standard for body armor. It specifies the construction and assembly requirements of personal armor for federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement and corrections agencies; the requirements of BA 9000 are voluntary.
DGQ is a membership organization, which was founded in 1952 by Technical Statistics Committee under Committee for Economical Production. Since 1972, DGQ is legally independent under its present name.
ISO 37001Anti-bribery management systems - Requirements with guidance for use, is a management system standard published by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 2016. As the title suggests, this standard sets out the requirements for the establishment, implementation, operation, maintenance, and continual improvement of an anti-bribery management system (ABMS). It also provides guidance on the actions and approaches organizations can take to adhere to the requirements of this standard.
DQS can refer to: