What happens after the certificate is issued?

After an accredited certification body issues the certificate, the cycle continues. Surveillance 1 is a shorter visit in the first year. Surveillance 2 is the visit in the following year. Before expiry, re-certification renews the cycle and returns it to Surveillance 1.

What is Surveillance 1 for?

Surveillance 1 checks that the system is still the one that was certified. It is shorter than Stage 2. The auditor samples live work again: a job, a control, a record from a real date. The question is whether people still use the process, not whether the manual was rewritten for the first audit.

A certificate that sits in a drawer while the work changes is the usual failure. New sites, new products, and new suppliers belong in the sample when they are inside the scope. If the scope itself has changed, that is a conversation before the visit, not a surprise in the closing meeting.

What does Surveillance 2 add?

Surveillance 2 is the visit in the following year. It should not repeat the same sample as Surveillance 1 and call that coverage. Across the two visits, the important processes each get a turn. Where several systems share one certificate, each surveillance visit should touch each of them. A wave at the second system does not keep it certified.

Findings at surveillance are still specific. A control that operated at Stage 2 and has no record since then is a finding about operation, the same kind of finding as at the first audit.

Where does re-certification send you?

Before the certificate expires, re-certification audits the system for a new cycle. It does not send the company back to the application, and it does not repeat Stage 1 as a matter of course. When it is complete, the cycle returns to Surveillance 1, then Surveillance 2, then re-certification again.

The line of eight steps, and the loop at the end, is drawn in how certification works. IAF Consultancy carries out the visits. The accredited certification body remains the issuer of the certificate. If the scope needs to grow before the next visit, start with an application.