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Multi-site certification

Where an organisation operates several sites performing similar activities under one management system, IAF MD 1 permits certification on a sampling basis rather than auditing every site every cycle. That reduces cost substantially — but it comes with conditions, and the conditions are where multi-site schemes usually go wrong.

• A central function must exist with authority over the management system at every site in scope.
• Internal audit and management review must cover all sites, not only the sampled ones.
• The sample size is calculated by rule, not chosen — and the sample must rotate across the cycle.
• Every site must be audited at least once across the three-year certification cycle.
• A nonconformity at a sampled site is treated as potentially systemic and investigated across the group.
• Sites performing genuinely different activities cannot be sampled together.