PCN Certification Scheme governance factors

BS EN ISO 9712 confirms that the effectiveness of any application of non-destructive testing (NDT) depends upon the capabilities of those persons who perform or are responsible for the test and, in this regard, BS EN ISO 9712 was developed to provide a means of evaluating and documenting the competence of personnel whose duties require the appropriate theoretical and practical knowledge of the non-destructive tests they perform, specify, supervise, monitor or evaluate.

Where BS EN ISO 9712 certification is specified within product standards, regulations, codes or specifications, latitude is provided within the worldwide-accepted PCN Certification Scheme used to confirm that specific certification requirements have been met, while at all times working within the boundaries of BS EN ISO 9712.

In this regard, BINDT’s Certification Management Committee (CMC) holds responsibility for maintaining a management overview to ensure the preservation of the international reputation of the PCN Scheme. As such, the CMC encourages all participating industry sectors to nominate a representative to the CMC to ensure that adequate industry representation exists within the committee structure that is sufficient to maintain a level of service availability commensurate with the requirements of industry. To this end, the BINDT Certification Scheme, known as PCN, is therefore governed by the CMC, which demands that its constitution is represented by a minimum of 51% industry representation.

In demonstrating to the CMC that the PCN Scheme is continually managed in an effective way, the PCN Certification Services Department is required to show that they do, and will continue to, verify, confirm and document that BS EN ISO 9712’s requirements for candidates to have demonstrated successful completion of approved training, the passing of a PCN examination and the fulfilment of those requirements for practical industrial experience have been met for both initial, renewal and recertification to take place at all Levels (1, 2 and 3). Additionally, any certifying body, including BINDT, must be able to physically demonstrate that these mandatory requirements have been met and reliably documented at an annual audit carried out by such organisations as the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). These checks and balances carried out by BINDT’s PCN department may require that a member of the PCN team contacts the certificate holder for additional information to satisfy both BS EN ISO 9712 and, in addition, UKAS requirements. Where compliance cannot be demonstrated to bodies such as UKAS by certifying bodies such as BINDT, this may bring into question the continued acceptance for BINDT to provide certification through the highly regulated PCN Scheme. Therefore, and in light of these ongoing checks and balances, the cost of the ongoing maintenance and running of the PCN Scheme can be confirmed as being substantial when the backroom requirements are factored into the cost of releasing certification to those successful PCN candidates.

For those PCN certificate holders who would like to participate in the PCN certification debate, I would draw their attention to BINDT’s Practitioner Committee, which looks to address certification issues that they remain passionate about and have the propensity to affect you. The committee seeks to answer questions through use of constructive and documented debate, where feedback from the Practitioner Committee can effectively empower BINDT as an organisation to work with both the CMC and other organisations such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which in turn is responsible for developing, maintaining and reviewing standards such as BS EN ISO 9712, the drivers behind worldwide certification schemes such as PCN.

On a more local level, the committee will look to consider those responses received during practitioner meetings and, where practical, recommend to the CMC to make changes to its PCN operation where it believes change would be beneficial, while at all times remaining within the boundaries of BS EN ISO 9712 and its responsibilities to the certificate holder and to UKAS.

On this note, BINDT has recently released a suite of revised certification requirements documents, which can be viewed on BINDT’s website, where it is hoped that the newly developed PCN24 format will make obtaining and maintaining PCN certification a much more user-friendly experience. To view these documents, visit: www.bindt.org/certification/pcn24download

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