DMC passed its fourth CSIA audit this month. As a member of the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA), DMC is required to undergo a third-party audit once every three years to maintain our certification. CSIA Certification is the capstone of implementing best practices for a control system integration business.
Audit Approach
Everyone at DMC is involved in the certification process to ensure that the best practices become part of the company’s ‘DNA’. DMC follows CSIA's recommended audit preparation, which is to approach an audit like you would run a project.
For each piece of audit criteria, DMC assigned a champion to evaluate it and ensure that it's up-to-date. DMC’s best practices are stored in a shared document on SharePoint, so it's easy for everyone to link from each piece of criteria to the relevant best practice. The checklist was organized three months in advance, so each employee had plenty of time to prepare their assignments.
Importance
The CSIA Certification recognizes DMC's technical proficiency and sound business practices. We have invested our time and resources to become recertified every three years, and it is a worthwhile investment. The best practices we have implemented are important in becoming a better company. It is in the best interest of DMC to be certified and expand our knowledge to better serve our customers.
The certification is important to staying ahead in our industry. We strive to keep up with the latest technologies and invest into being an industry leader. CSIA-certified companies are also financially stronger than non-certified companies. There is a strong link between certification and business performance, and this link is important to DMC.
Score and Improvements
DMC has been CSIA certified since 2009. We improved our score from 306 in 2015 to 337 in 2018. We gained extra points in most areas including management, human resources, and marketing.
One of our reasons for success was due to the role of our Project Coordinators. Having Project Coordinators help run our projects has bridged gaps, project life cycle, and project management. The score we achieved is normally reserved for companies two or three times larger than DMC. DMC is very proud of our best practices and being a part of the CSIA for nearly a decade now.
Audit Preparation Tips
Establishing effective best practices is key to the success of systems integrators and the reason that we have earned and maintained our CSIA Certification. If you're considering CSIA certification for your organization, check out our 10 Tips and Tricks for Using SharePoint to Prepare for the CSIA Audit presented by Rick Rietz at the 2018 CSIA Executive Conference. These tips help establish an effective best practices structure inside SharePoint that's easy to maintain and more importantly, easy for employees to use.
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