Professional certification, trade certification, or professional designation, often called simply certification or qualification, is a designation earned by a person to assure qualification to perform a job or task. Not all certifications that use post-nominal letters are an acknowledgement of educational achievement, or an agency appointed to safeguard the public interest.
The ISO 9000 family is a set of five quality management systems (QMS) standards 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 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 9002 is a model for quality assurance in production and installation. ISO 9003 for quality assurance in final inspection and test. ISO 9004 gives guidance on achieving sustained organizational success.
A consultant is a professional who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization.
Engineering management is the application of the practice of management to the practice of engineering. Engineering management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving ability of engineering and the organizational, administrative, legal and planning abilities of management in order to oversee the operational performance of complex engineering driven enterprises. A Master of Engineering Management (MEM) is sometimes compared to a Master of Business Administration (MBA) for professionals seeking a graduate degree as a qualifying credential for a career in engineering management.
The Project Management Institute is a U.S.-based not-for-profit professional organization for project management.
"Certified management consultant" (CMC) is an international professional certification established in 1967 for management consulting professionals, awarded by institutes in 50 countries. The CMC enjoys global reciprocity; consultants certified in one country are recognized in most other countries. The standards for CMC in technical competencies and professional conduct were developed by international associations; in the US, such an organization is the Institute of Management Consultants USA, and internationally, The International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI).
The human resource consulting industry has emerged from management consulting and addresses human resource management tasks and decisions. HR Consultants can fill two typical roles (1) Expert Resource Consultant (2) Process/People consultant. These two roles are defined by Steele F. (1975), Kubr,M. ; Niedereicholz (1996), Curnow-Reuvid (2003) and Kipping, K. and Clarck (2014).
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.
The Institute of Consulting (IC) is the professional body for consultants and business advisers in the United Kingdom. It replaced the former Institute of Business Consulting (IBC) in January 2011, which was itself formed as the merger of two predecessor bodies, the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC) and the Institute of Business Advisors (IBA). The Institute of Consulting is an organisation within the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).
ISO/IEC 27006 is an information security standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Part of the ISO/IEC 27000 series of ISO/IEC Information Security Management System (ISMS) standards, it is titled Information technology - Security techniques - Requirements for bodies providing audit and certification of information security management systems.
ISO/IEC 17024: Conformity assessment - General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons is an International Standard which specifies criteria for the operation of a personnel certification body. The standard includes requirements for the development and maintenance of the certification scheme for persons upon which the certification is based.
The Institute of Certified Professional Managers (ICPM) is a US-based, non-profit, educational institute and certification body affiliated with the James Madison University College of Business, that provides education and certification in management to managers, supervisors and leaders working in all industries. It was founded in 1974.
NSF is a product testing, inspection, certification organization with headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan. NSF also offers consulting and training services worldwide.
Environmental certification is a form of environmental regulation and development where a company can voluntarily choose to comply with predefined processes or objectives set forth by the certification service. Most certification services have a logo which can be applied to products certified under their standards. This is seen as a form of corporate social responsibility allowing companies to address their obligation to minimise the harmful impacts to the environment by voluntarily following a set of externally set and measured objectives.
The International Information System Security Certification Consortium, or (ISC)2, is a non-profit organization which specializes in training and certifications for cybersecurity professionals. It has been described as the "world's largest IT security organization". The most widely known certification offered by (ISC)2 is the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification.
ISO/IEC 27001 is an international standard to manage information security. The standard was originally published jointly by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 2005, revised in 2013, and again most recently in 2022. There are also numerous recognized national variants of the standard. It details requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving an information security management system (ISMS) – the aim of which is to help organizations make the information assets they hold more secure. Organizations that meet the standard's requirements can choose to be certified by an accredited certification body following successful completion of an audit. The effectiveness of the ISO/IEC 27001 certification process and the overall standard has been addressed in a large-scale study conducted in 2020.
The Investments and Wealth Institute (IWI), previously known as Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA), was founded in 1985 in Colorado to provide investment consulting and wealth management credentials and educational offerings for its members. IMCA is both a certification organization and a membership association.
The International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI) has since 1987 been the professional body worldwide for management consultants. ICMCI since 2013 is called CMC-Global.
The Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP)/ Professionnel en sécurité agréé du Canada (PSAC) is a certification offered by the Board of Canadian Registered Safety Professionals for an Occupational Health and Safety professional. The CRSP/PSAC is accredited in Canada to ISO 17024 by the Standards Council of Canada.
The Ordre des administrateurs agréés du Québec (Adm.A.) is a professional Order mandated by the Government of Quebec (Canada) to regulate the practice of the "Administrateurs agréés".
