Acquiring ISO certification and standards important to SMEs – CLSCE
The Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Excellence (CLSCE) has highlighted the need for acquisition of ISO certification and the use of ISO standards, to enable small and micro enterprises access the international market.
CLSCE said that endeavour would facilitate trade, spread knowledge, disseminate innovative advances in technology and make a positive contribution to the world by ensuring that SMEs meet the required standards and share good management and conformity assessment practices.
Speaking at a press briefing held in collaboration with ACP of the European Union, Mr Emmanuel Turkson, Managing Director of CLSCE said that the ISO standards would provide solutions and develop market standards for almost all sectors of activity: agriculture, construction, mechanical, engineering, manufacturing, distribution, transport, medical devices among others.
Due to this potential, he said the CLSCE and the ACP of the European Union have embarked on a 10-month project to train some companies in the country to enable them sell their products on the international market.
Mr Turkson emphasized that the project, entitled “Strengthening the Competitiveness of Ghana-Based Exporters through effective Export Quality Management System (EQMS)”, would help overcome barriers to trade in the regional and international markets by promoting adoption of international standards among exporting companies, and enable Government to achieve the target of 5 million export initiatives in the country.
“This standardisation and certification process will allow companies to meet customers’ expectations at the best.”
He said the roadmap of the project was to select 30 companies for the certification process, advanced training, (which took place in July), quality managers training in November and a coaching exercise in December.
Mr Turkson said after this stage the number of companies would be reduced to 15 and they would be on the field on export quality management.
Mr. Dario Salvatore Caccamisi, the Project Team Leader urged companies to ensure consistency in their production process to achieve enough quality to meet the ISO standards.
Source: GNA