ISO 9001 in Solothurn: certificate without an on-site audit

ISO 9001 is not tied to an industry. In the Solothurn region it comes up most often among manufacturers and their suppliers: metalworking, mechanical engineering, precision components, plastics processing. A purchasing department at a larger customer sends a supplier questionnaire, and one of the first questions is whether a certified quality management system exists.

Service companies meet the same question from another side. Software houses, consulting firms, engineering offices and trades that answer a public tender often have to attach a certificate to the quote. Public institutions and their contractors ask for it as well.

Company size rarely decides anything. A team of eight can run a quality management system that satisfies the standard, as long as processes, responsibilities and checks are written down and actually followed.

• ISO standards for small and medium businesses

The standard describes what a quality management system must do so that products and services reliably meet customer and legal requirements. It rests on seven principles: customer focus, leadership, engagement of people, process approach, improvement, evidence-based decision making and relationship management. In practice, six requirements carry most of the work.

Context of the organisation

You describe who your interested parties are, what they expect and where the scope of your system ends (clause 4).

Quality policy and objectives

Management sets a policy and objectives that can be measured (clauses 5 and 6).

Risks and opportunities

You identify what could stop you from delivering the agreed quality and decide what to do about it (clause 6).

Controlled processes

Key processes from quote to delivery are defined, with owners and checks (clause 8).

Resources and competence

People, equipment and know-how are in place, and training is recorded (clause 7).

Measurement and improvement

You track performance, review it with management and correct what falls short (clauses 9 and 10).

The classic route means a certification body sends an auditor to your premises. It suits companies whose customers explicitly demand it. The online route replaces the visit with a structured self-assessment. The differences are practical.

• Compare the certification routes
• Certification without an on-site audit

Nobody comes to your premises, and you do not need to travel. Five steps lead to the certificate.

1. 01

   Start the self-assessment

   Open it in your browser. It is free and needs no registration.

2. 02

   Answer 36 yes/no questions

   Eleven of them are mandatory requirements of the standard and must all be answered yes. Of the other 25, at least 17 need a yes.

3. 03

   SICE reviews your assessment

   Every assessment is checked by SICE before a certificate is issued.

4. 04

   Pay and receive the certificate

   Once you have passed and paid, the certificate arrives within 4 hours as a PDF with a number and a QR code. You do not need an account to buy.

5. 05

   Confirm it every year

   A short online re-audit keeps the certificate valid during its three years.

• See how it works in detail
• Start the free self-assessment

Zertify is an online platform. There is no office in Solothurn, and none is needed: the certificate is issued by G6 Agency AG under licence from SICE, based on your self-assessment. The standard page explains the scope of ISO 9001 and what the questions cover.

The price is CHF 599 (€599) in the first year, then CHF 399 (€399) per year including the yearly online re-audit. The certificate is valid for 3 years. Customers in Switzerland and Liechtenstein pay prices including 8.1% Swiss VAT.

Billing is an automatic yearly subscription. You can cancel at any time in your customer account, effective at the end of the current year. The certificate then ends with the paid year. If you want a second or third standard, such as ISO 14001 or ISO 27001, a discount of 20% for two standards and 30% for three or more applies, also to the yearly fee.

• ISO 9001 certificate at Zertify
• Prices and discounts
• Start the free self-assessment

Every Zertify certificate can be verified publicly by its number or by scanning the QR code on the PDF. The verification page shows whether the certificate is valid. A buyer in a purchasing department or an auditor on the customer side can confirm it in a minute, without writing to you.

Put the certificate number in your quote template and the PDF with its QR code in the attachment of your next tender. The question in the supplier questionnaire is then answered before anyone has to ask twice.

• What ISO certification costs