The railway industry is undergoing major changes because of the liberalisation of operating companies. And it is very clear that the requirements placed on you, as a company within the railway sector, have become stricter. Competition is becoming tougher in the rolling stock industry, and so you have to provide proof of the safety and quality of your products and processes.  

With certification according to ISO/TS 22163 – also known as IRIS Certification™ – you show clearly to the outside world that your company is well able to meet the quality demands within the industry. ISO/TS 22163 offers standardised quality management requirements and assessment guidelines and also standardised audits. This should make it easier to judge and compare suppliers.

IRIS stands for International Railway Industry Standard, and ISO/TS 22163 was created from this standard. The standard was developed and published by the Union des Industries Ferroviaires Européennes (UNIFE), the Association of the European Rail Supply Industry. In order to assess the audit findings, the special “IRIS Audit Tool” software, based on the IRIS audit questionnaire, continues to be used. The result is registered in the UNIFE supplier database, also known as the IRIS database.

The guiding purpose of the standard is to make quality transparent and to improve it along the entire supply chain. This is why the four largest system manufacturers (Alstom, AnsaldoBreda, Bombardier and Siemens) require ISO/TS 22163 for their suppliers.

ISO/TS 22163 shares the High Level Structure established in many major ISO standards. It covers the requirements of ISO 9001, but augments these with specific requirements for whole railway supply chain. These include the assessment of life cycle costs, project management and also management of orders and model series.

The IRIS certification system “IRIS Certification™ rev. 03” is altogether made up of three components:

• ISO/TS 22163:2017, consisting of the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 and the specific requirements of whole railway supply chain
• IRIS Certification Conformity Assessment
• The IRIS Certification™ Technology(audit tool, portal and database).

The rail-specific standard for quality management systems is addressed both to companies concentrating on development, production and maintenance of rail vehicles and to all railway supply chain.

• Certified proof of fulfilment of rolling stock industry requirements
• Raised quality standards in the organisation and the whole supply chain 
• Improved market position
• Higher profile and increased competitiveness
• Improved position when tendering
• Inclusion in the IRIS database, the supplier database of UNIFE, the Association of the European Rail Supply Industry, which contains detailed information regarding the certification results of all certified organisations and which is used by many companies within the railway industry.