A double celebration is getting underway this month at DNV Business Assurance. As one of the world’s leading certification bodies, the company is about to commemorate its 150th anniversary next year. But first, DNV’s oil and gas certification team is celebrating that their cumulative experience in the sector also adds up to over a whopping 150 years.
DNV principal lead auditor Patrick Darmody said: "We began by wondering if we had a century’s worth of experience, but since many of the oil and gas team auditors have 20 plus years of experience in the sector, it soon added up."
Indeed, this 150-year total covers years spent working offshore and on, in the North Sea and worldwide. It represents auditors who have worked with every size of operation from small and medium enterprise SME to multinational, and includes auditors from a broad range of backgrounds.
"What this translates into," explains Pat, "is that we’re offering an unbeatable depth of experience to our clients. This is driving value into every business we work with."
Matching auditor to client
How so? Well for one thing, the wide range of auditor backgrounds means that, irrespective of size, DNV can match clients with an auditor who will understand their business.
For larger clients including multinational operations, DNV also appoints a technical project manager to an audit team, ensuring a common approach. This means that wherever a client is operating, be it Aberdeen or Azerbaijan, DNV will provide a consistent level of assurance and control, and drive the same messages wherever audits are being performed.
DNV Aberdeen relationship management Mary Foley explains: "It also means that all reports are checked and analysed by the technical project manager. This enables the recognition of trends across regions or businesses, identification of good practices, or the emergence of systemic issues. It’s a powerful way to provide clients with a global snapshot of where they are, and the issues they need to pay attention to."
Identifying focus areas
Talking of issues, DNV’s clients also benefit hugely from the certification body’s unique ‘focus area’ approach. "All DNV audits are risk based," states Pat Darmody. "We check compliance with the standard, but we’re also sitting down with clients to help them identify the particular area that gives them the most concern, or constitutes risk to their business." The focus might be on competence, or it might be on risk management across the supply chain. Whatever, DNV addresses the identification and management of key risks to businesses in the certification process. "Our clients find that this really does add value," says Pat.
Industry knowledge
On the eve of celebrating 150 years, DNV believes that its unrivalled industry knowledge is more important than ever to the oil and gas sector. "A lot of our clients are merging or acquiring new businesses," says Mary. "This results in companies having to cope with maybe four or five legacy management systems at the same time as they are trying to build a coherent culture across their whole operation."
In the face of these challenges, DNV provides a truly integrated approach to management systems certification auditing; one that brings cohesion and invaluable visibility of how the whole business is operating. It takes 150 years of experience to deliver this quality of service, but that’s exactly what DNV has to offer.