Commitment to deliver quality products and services to the farmers inspired the management of Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) to implement a Quality Management System (QMS) in accordance with the requirements of ISO 9001. The ultimate goal of QMS is satisfying the needs of customers through practices involving continuous improvement.

Documentation of processes and maintaining records of accomplishment became routinary at all levels. This practice motivated the organization to move further so that the management system implemented and maintained becomes internationally recognized by having it certified to the ISO 9001 Standards. Determined efforts successfully led to PCC’s certification on January 2003.

After the certification, performance of the agency has been constantly monitored to make sure that the procedures involved in delivering the products and services to the customers are indeed implemented in accordance with the requirements of the international standards. Audits are performed annually, both internally by competent internal auditors and externally through surveillance audit by the Certifying Body. These audits ensure that the management system is effectively and efficiently maintained. In 2010, PCC’s ISO 9001:2000 certification was upgraded to the ISO 9001:2008 version to cope with changes deemed necessary for improvement.

On the ninth year of implementing the QMS, the PCC management expressed its commitment to the protection of environment and promotion of health and safety of its employees. This is to ensure that the activities involved in production and service provision are not causing harm to the environment while health and safety of the employees are given premium consideration.

Given this objective, implementation of Environmental Management System (EMS) – ISO 14001 and Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) – ISO 45001 – was pursued.

Efforts were focused on integrating the two management systems with the existing QMS. This resulted in the certification of the PCC National Headquarters and Gene Pool to the two other Standards in time with the renewal of QMS in February 2012. This made the PCC National Headquarters and Gene Pool an Integrated Management Systems (IMS)-certified agency.

Cascading QMS down to the PCC Regional Centers

To ensure quality of products at the regional level, PCC Centers were encouraged to acquire their stand-alone ISO 9001:2015 certification. To date, eight (8) centers, namely, PCC at Mariano Marcos State University in Batac, Ilocos Norte, PCC at University of the Philippines at Los Baños in Laguna, PCC at University of Southern Mindanao in Kabacan, North Cotabato, PCC at Cagayan State University in Tuguegarao, Cagayan, PCC at Ubay Stock Farm in Bohol, PCC at Central Mindanao University in Maramag, Bukidnon, PCC at La Carlota Stock Farm La Carlota City, Negros Occidental and PCC at Central Luzon State University in Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija are already certified to aforementioned Standard.

The rest of the regional centers are expected to attain a similar status after the PCC Program Management Committee approved on November 15, 2012 a resolution calling on all centers to work on their respective stand-alone certification.