Meet Our Partners - Infralogics Limited

What standards can you help NQA clients with?

• ISO 9001:2015 [Quality Management]

• ISO 14001:2015 [Environmental Management]

• ISO 45001:2018 [Occupational Health and Safety]

About your company

The consultancy business originally grew out of my own career in operations management, specialising in documenting policies, procedures and company handbooks years before I had heard of “quality management” or ISO Standards.

Once set up on my own I was introduced to ISO 9001 and recognised its value as a guiding framework for management systems – though not as a direct template; one of the first decisions I made on my first client's ISO 9001 Quality Management System was to discard a boilerplate manual someone kindly offered me, which was a straightforward regurgitation of the Standard but completely alien to the needs and terminology of the client.

It's a philosophy I am proud to have stuck to for the last 20+ years. Every Management System developed by Infralogics has been unique and personal to the client, has centred on the processes, thinking and language of people within the business and has worked to map those onto the relevant Standard(s) – not the other way round.

And, like that first client, every Management System developed from scratch by Infralogics has, if certification was a client requirement, been assessed by a UKAS-accredited certification body and achieved certification at the first application, with no major non-conformities.

Having focused primarily on quality management for more than 15 years (including systems certified to AS9100 for the aerospace industry and ISO 13485 for medical devices), Infralogics now supports a broader scope of consultancy and internal audit requirements including in particular environmental and health & safety management systems, reflecting the increasing alignment of the ISO Standards and the efficiencies and benefits gained from integrating them intelligently within client organisations.

Why do you like working with NQA? How do you benefit from the relationship? Why did you choose to work in partnership with NQA?

We are very pleased to be an NQA partner, having worked intermittently with NQA auditors for many years.

As a partner consultancy Infralogics recognises the wealth of support and expertise provided by NQA, including online reference materials, training and information sessions and access to real people ready to discuss ideas, resolve queries and help with network contacts.

More importantly – client feedback from NQA audits and training courses has invariably been positive and appreciative of the value added by NQA personnel. The pragmatic, personal and flexible culture of NQA auditors fits well with our, and our clients’ approach to the purpose of implementing management systems. This is particularly critical to our smaller and medium-sized clients, for whom a bad experience with an auditor or “getting off on the wrong foot” could have a disastrous impact on their perception of the certification process and its value. 

Top tip for people looking at certification?

Certification is an outcome, not an end in itself.

Approach the implementation of a management system in the right way and there is no additional work involved in the certification process – you will have done all the work already: “certification” is simply someone else looking at what you have achieved, and confirming that you have done it.

Similarly – whilst many organisations will desire, or require, the “certificate on the wall” as a sales and marketing lever, or as a means of getting onto bigger and better tender lists – the real value to the organisation lies in the responsibilities, controls, processes, measures and continual improvement which sit behind it.

If all you want out of the certification process is a piece of paper then that’s all you will get. (And you probably won’t get it from Infralogics – or NQA.)

What do you find is the most common point of misunderstanding regarding certification or specific standards when visiting clients? What information do you have to clarify most often?

I would highlight two main points:

1)     The meaning of, and relationship between, clauses 4 and 6 of the ISO Standards which follow the 'High-Level Structure':

The terminology and structure of these requirements are still baffling to many SMEs, who often fail to see what the Standards are getting at, and what they are required to do to satisfy them.

Often it is only when we sit down with people and start to explore the issues which affect their own organisations that the lights start to come on. People will start to produce the most amazing business plans, SWOT analyses, risk registers and all the rest – which in many cases have been there all along, but without the linkage being understood between these real-life processes and the alien wording of the ISO requirements.

2)     Who’s Who in the standards and certification industry:

Many clients do not understand the roles and relationships between certification bodies, accreditation bodies, consultants, standards bodies and the multifarious acronyms which populate our world of standards and certifications. I still have clients who refer to me as “The man from ISO:” start to throw in explanations about BS EN ISO Standards, and the role of the IAF in multilateral recognition of national certifications – and you are out on your own. The client has already got up and left the conversation and is back at work.

The moral here – as in all things “management systems” – is, “Keep it simple.” If it doesn’t need to be complicated, everyone’s requirements are being satisfied and the management systems are doing their job – a lack of precision over names and initials can be tolerated. So long as clients understand that we are not being paid by the certification bodies, and that all parties are there to provide an impartial, fair and supportive experience for them – it really doesn’t matter if they think I’m Father Christmas. If they really need to know I can explain it to them again!

Anything else you think our readers might like to know/hear?

Infralogics has always been committed to people understanding not only what to do but why it adds value. As we like to say to clients, “If a Standard or an auditor appears to be telling us to do something which doesn’t add value, then either we are doing it wrong or one of us has misunderstood!”

NOTE -

For more information please visit us at:

LinkedIn: infralogics-limited
Website: www.infralogics.co.uk

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* Disclaimer:

NQA does not provide consultancy in order to remain impartial from management systems implementation.

NQA shall not imply that certification would be simpler, easier, faster or less expensive if a consultancy listed on the ACR is used.

ACR Consultants shall not imply that NQA certification would be simpler, easier, faster or less expensive if their services are used.

NQA remains impartial from our partners on our Associate Consultant Register and does not endorse one partner over another.

‘Our consultants’ do not work for NQA, they work as independent bodies in partnership with us through our Associate Partner Programme. In accordance with the accreditation standard ISO 17021-1:2015 NQA does not provide consultancy in order to remain impartial from management systems implementation.