Manufacturing
Four authorities want evidence about the same factory, in four formats, and none of them accepts another one's paperwork.
A Saudi factory answers to the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources for its licence, SASO through SABER for product conformity, the environmental regulator for its permit, and MODON or the Royal Commission for the zone it sits in. Management system certificates then sit on top, demanded by customers.
The same facts, four times
Nobody in a factory complains about the standards. They complain that the industrial licence renewal, the environmental permit, the product conformity file and the customer audit all want overlapping evidence in incompatible formats, on four unrelated clocks, and that the person who knows where everything is kept is also the person running production. The work is not producing the evidence. The work is holding it in one place in a form that answers all four without being rebuilt each time.
- Dammam 2nd Industrial City is a MODON city. Jubail and Ras Al Khair are Royal Commission, with their own environmental code on top of the national rules
- SPARK is a MODON private industrial city rather than a Royal Commission one, and people get that wrong constantly
- Regulated products need registration on SABER, with a product certificate and a shipment certificate under the SALEEM programme
- Customer audits arrive with their own checklist and expect evidence in their format, not yours
- An expansion or a new line reopens the permit chain, usually later than anyone planned for
What we put in place
ISO 9001
The customer-facing baseline, built on your real process chain rather than on a template.
Read moreStandardISO 14001
Aspects and compliance obligations, with the Royal Commission conditions in the register where they apply.
Read moreStandardISO 45001
Machinery, isolation and contractor control, with the worker participation evidence auditors test.
Read moreServiceIntegrated management system
One document set for all three, which is the only way a plant team keeps it current.
Read moreServiceAramco prequalification
For plants selling into that supply chain, with the invented requirements stripped out.
Read moreWho wants what
| Requirement | What it means on site |
|---|---|
| Industrial licence | Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources. Gates the rest of the chain and reopens when the plant changes. |
| Zone authority | MODON inside its industrial cities including Dammam 2nd and SPARK. The Royal Commission inside Jubail, Yanbu and Ras Al Khair, with its own environmental regulations. |
| Environmental permit | The National Center for Environmental Compliance Monitoring on the national route, or the Royal Commission inside its cities. |
| Product conformity | SABER registration for regulated products, with a product certificate of conformity and a shipment certificate under SALEEM, issued by approved bodies. |
| Civil Defence | Safety permitting for the premises, with its own inspection and its own renewal. |
| Customer requirements | ISO 9001 as the baseline, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 where the buyer or the zone expects them, plus whatever their own audit checklist adds. |
Plant manager questions
Which authority governs our site?
It depends on where the site physically is. A plant in Dammam 2nd Industrial City deals with MODON. A plant inside Jubail or Ras Al Khair deals with the Royal Commission and its environmental code as well as the national rules. SPARK, near Buqayq, is a MODON private industrial city and not a Royal Commission one.
Do we need ISO 9001 to sell in Saudi Arabia?
Not as a law. As a commercial requirement it is close to universal for industrial buyers, and it is often the first filter in a vendor registration form. That is a different thing from a regulator requiring it.
Is SABER the same as certification?
No. SABER is the electronic platform for registering conformity of regulated products before they enter the market. Certificates are issued by approved certification bodies into that platform. A management system certificate is a separate thing entirely and does not substitute for either.
What does a typical engagement look like?
A fabrication workshop in Dammam 2nd Industrial City building ISO 14001. We build the aspects register on site by walking the process: cutting fluids, paint waste, compressor noise, the drain at the washdown bay. Each legal obligation is written as the condition it places on operations rather than as the name of a regulation, and MODON and national requirements sit in one register with the source of each. The workshop ends up holding an aspects register its supervisors recognise and an obligations register an assessor can trace.
Our customer audit produced twenty findings. Where do we start?
With their report, mapped onto clauses. Customer findings are free gap analysis, and they are usually concentrated in three or four processes rather than spread evenly. Fix the causes in those processes and most of the list closes together.
We are adding a line next year. Should we wait?
No, but scope for it. Build the system around the processes rather than around the current layout, and tell us about the expansion at the gap analysis so the scope statement and the aspects register do not need rewriting six months later.
Part of one system
Every division keeps records to the same standard, so the second one you need works the way the first one did.
Put the evidence in one place
The gap analysis reads your operation against the standard your customers ask for, and the output is one evidence set that answers more than one of these authorities without being rebuilt each time.