Certification

Plzensky Prazdroj, a.s. is constantly improving the quality of its customer services. It was the first brewing company in the Czech Republic to successfully introduce a common quality control and environmental protection system under ISO international norms. At the end of 2003, the system also underwent an extremely strict certification audit performed by the renowned company Det NorskeVeritas (represented in more than 130 countries) through its Czech branch DNV Czech Republic s.r.o.

Achieving this certification was extremely demanding, mainly in terms of time but also financially. Preparing for the successful culmination of the certification in a company of this size means at least fifteen months of demanding work by the many employees who were involved in introducing the system. The audit was performed in all the Group's breweries in the Czech and Slovak Republics - the breweries in Pilsen, Velke Popovice, Nosovice and Velke Saris. The systems were checked in all breweries over the course of three days and the DNV certification firm did not find any serious shortcomings from the required norms.

DNV's strict certification audit showed that all of the company's breweries meet the extremely high standards in both mentioned areas. For the first time since external audits began in our breweries, the audit found that there were no variances with norm requirements. The achievement is all the more valuable for the fact that Plzensky Prazdroj was certified by a company accredited by the RVA Accreditation Council. This is the traditional form of accreditation and one of the oldest and most widespread in the world in terms of history.

The successful conclusion to the audit does not mean that work on perfecting management systems has ended. Quite the contrary is true. The certificates are valid for three years and require annual controls to be passed. The company's management believes that the work devoted to building and developing management systems will soon pay dividends.

And where from here? The Plzensky Prazdroj group has installed a production system of an international standard, so-called World Class Manufacturing, which continues to perfect management systems in the company and goes hand in hand with the development of ISO systems.

Plzensky Prazdroj holds a trump card in its hand which enables it to gain certain competitive advantages as customers are interested not only in the quality of a product but also in the environmental impact caused by the producer.