Certificates are among the most important proofs in a product passport and among the hardest to maintain. They come from different suppliers, have different expiry dates and often cover several products at once. A single expired certificate on a public product page is enough to make a customer doubt the rest of the information.
Why certificates go out of date so easily
In many companies, a certificate goes into a folder when it arrives from the supplier, and nobody looks at it again until a customer asks for it. That is when it turns out it expired months ago, that the supplier sent a newer version that got stuck in someone's inbox, or that the same certificate was saved twice with different numbers.
Five rules that bring order to the process
- Link each certificate to products. A certificate should not sit in a general folder. It needs to be linked to the products and materials it covers, so you can see what happens when it expires.
- Complete data for every certificate. Name, number, issuer, issue date and expiry date. A missing number makes later matching harder, and a missing expiry date makes tracking impossible.
- Review with a deadline. Every new certificate should be reviewed by a specific person within a set time, not wait indefinitely for a decision.
- One current version. A new version of a certificate replaces the old one, but the history is kept. That way you know what was valid at any given time.
- An expired certificate blocks publication. A product whose certificate has expired should not be published as complete until a current document is in place.
How to work with suppliers
What saves the most time is clear guidance for suppliers: which documents you need, in what format and with what data. It also pays to collect certificates ahead of time as expiry approaches, rather than asking for them on the day a customer requests the current document.
How it works in DPPC
In DPPC, a certificate has a number, issuer, issue date and expiry date, and it can cover many products. Once it passes its expiry date, it is automatically marked as expired, and the linked products lose their readiness for publication. New certificates go into review with a deadline: five days by default, and two days when the certificate expires within 30 days. Automated pre-checks catch a missing number, wrong dates and the same certificate saved with a different number or issuer. Every version is stored with a checksum, and an earlier version can be restored.
Read more about document checks in our guide How to Review Product Documents and Certificates and on our page Automated Checks for Documents and Certificates.