(DG JRC/IPTS) - agrilife - Europa

employees, SGS operates a network of about 1’000 offices and laboratories around the
world with a presence in well over 120 countries. Originally founded in 1878 in Rouen
as French grain shipment inspection house, the Company was registered in Geneva as
Société Générale de Surveillance in 1919. Shares of SGS were first listed on (SWX)
Swiss Exchange in 1985. Since 2001, SGS has only one class of shares consisting of
registered shares. The core services offered by SGS can be divided into three categories:
Inspection services (SGS inspects and verifies the quantity, weight and quality of traded
goods. Inspection typically takes place at transshipment); Testing services (SGS tests
product quality and performance against various health, safety and regulatory standards.
SGS operates state of the art laboratories on or close to customers' premises);
Certification services (SGS certifies that systems or services meet the requirements of
standards set by governments, standardization bodies (e.g.ISO 9000) or by SGS
customers. SGS also develops and certifies its own standards).
Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance
LRQA is one of the world’s foremost management system certification, business
assurance and training organizations. LRQA provides certification of compliance with
international management system standards and helps clients use management systems
to reduce their risks and improve their business. Assessment criteria cover certification
to national, international and industry sector management system standards in quality,
environment, occupational health and safety management and information security.
LRQA is also a notified body for a number of EC directives and offers validation and
verification services. Institute of Quality Assurance and have significant industrial and
commercial experience. Assessors audit an organization’s management systems to
verify whether or not they comply with the requirements of national and internationally
agreed standards and schemes – such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 and BS
7799. An LRQA assessment combines the:
• observation of work being undertaken
• review of records
• face-to-face questioning of staff at all levels in the company.
It should be recognized that management system certification can only reduce the risk
of a problem and does not guarantee problems are eliminated. Management system
certification by accredited, third party certification bodies gives interested parties – such
as customers, suppliers, trading partners, local communities, investors and other
stakeholders – the assurance that top management are committed to systematic and
sustainable improvement of their management systems which is supported with
evidence of the way work is actually performed.
• Bureau Veritas Quality International www.bv.lv or www.bvql.com
• Societe Generale de Surveillance www.sgs.com
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