The story
DQS was founded in 1985 as Deutsche Gesellschaft für Qualitätssicherung in Berlin and later renamed to Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Zertifizierung von Managementsystemen. It was the first German certification body for management systems. The aim of the founding partners, DGQ (German Society for Quality) and DIN (German Institute for Standardization), was mainly to promote the German economy. The foundation overlapped with the publication of the first drafts of the ISO 9000 series of standards, which also include the most important quality standard worldwide today: ISO 9001.
DQS began its work on 1 February 1985, five months before the first drafts of the ISO 9000 family of standards were published. It was the world’s third management system certification body and the first certification body in Germany to issue a certificate according to ISO 9001 in 1986.
During the following years, DQS began to expand its activities internationally. In 1990, DQS became a founding member of the international certification network EQNet (today IQNet), which brought together certification bodies from several countries. The establishment of the network was intended to take into account the increasing internationality of industry. In 1991, DQS became the first certification body in Germany to be accredited for ISO 9001/2/3 by TGA GmbH (now Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle GmbH, DAkkS).
In 1994, the company established its first subsidiary abroad, DQS do Brasil in São Paulo.
In 2008, DQS merged with the management systems certification division of Underwriters Laboratories (UL). This expanded the company's activities in Europe, Asia, and North and South America, particularly in the United States. The merger with UL formed one of the world’s largest management system certification bodies with more than 60 offices in over 40 countries.
In the same year, the subsidiary DQS Medizinprodukte GmbH was established. It provides certification and assessment services for the medical device industry and related sectors. DQS had previously been involved in this field in 1995, when it established a competence centre for medical devices and was designated as a notified body under the European Medical Devices Directive (93/42/EEC).
In January 2009, DQS opened an office in Brentford, establishing DQS UK Ltd. The UK office was the twentieth DQS office in Europe. By 2010, DQS had more than 60 offices in over 50 countries and around 45,000 certified sites worldwide.
In 2014, DQS established a Global Account Management unit to coordinate its international customer business. In 2017, DQS introduced the certification scheme Qualified Carrier, developed with representatives of the logistics sector and aimed primarily at small and medium-sized transport companies.
Read the full text
In January 2023, DQS entered into a strategic partnership with the VDE Testing and Certification Institute. The cooperation offers joint certification services for management systems, including cross-border certification activities.
In February 2026, DQS integrated its Malaysia and Singapore operations into the group as wholly owned subsidiaries. Prior to this integration, the operations in both markets had been conducted under a licence partner model.
From Wikipedia’s article on DQS, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5