Professional's area | Manufacturers or service providers | Distributors | Prescribers | What is certification ?

Why should you prescribe NF products or services?
You are liable to your customers. When the NF mark is placed on products or services, it proves that they are reliable and of a high quality. The NF mark guarantees that the products or services are regularly checked. Prescribing NF products offers your customers an additional guarantee of satisfaction and is a token of a business relationship based on trust.

Public contracts
In the case of public procurement, the public procurer must choose products or services that comply with the performances described in the standards. The agent is responsible for the contract and must ask the bidder for written guarantees as to the compliance of its products or services with the relevant standards.
This means that, as AFNOR Certifications offer a quality guarantee, they may be requested as elements in the definition of the service covered by the contract. However, the contract may specify possible recourse to other marks.
If there are documents recognising the equivalency between marks, established by agreement between the certifying organisations concerned, they may be used by the bidder.
In any case, it is the public procurer's responsibility to make sure that the certificates proposed in fact cover the same elements (standards, additional specifications, tests and inspection methods) as those demanded by the NF mark and to assess whether the missing or different elements have an effect on the level of service quality with regard to the object of the contract.

What is the NF mark?
The NF mark is a certification mark. It provides your customers with indisputable proof that the products or services certified meet their needs and are compliant with the safety and/or quality characteristics defined in the corresponding certification reference system.

This reference system comprises:
French, European or international standards produced in collaboration with manufacturers, users, distributors, consumer associations, laboratories and public authorities,
Additional specifications relating to the product or service and the company's quality organisation, contained in certification regulations specific to each product or service.

The certification reference systems are established in collaboration with all the players concerned: manufacturers or service providers, professional organisations, consumers, public authorities, technical organisations, and so on.

Who issues the NF mark?
AFNOR Certification calls on and combines the scientific and technical know-how of many general or specialist organisations, who take part in certification development and management. These organisations are known as the NF mark's network.

As the leader of a network of expertise, AFNOR Certification depends, for the NF mark, on structures such as:
Authorised organisations entrusted with performing all the certification operations leading to the issuing of NF marks,
Technical secretariats, to whom parts of the certification process are sub-contracted,
Testing and analysis laboratories and specialist inspection and auditing organisations.
In this way, more than 50 organisations are able to contribute their know-how and expertise.