INN / SICEP Audit Preparation for Inspection Companies
A INN / SICEP audit runs in 6 stages, beginning with submit the application and proposed scope through inn's sdac portal using forms.. Instituto Nacional de Normalización (INN), which is both the national standards body and the national accreditation body; Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería (SERNAGEOMIN) for mine safety; the SEREMI de Salud for boilers, autoclaves and steam equipment; SICEP, administered by the Asociación de Industriales de.
Chile does not licence NDT companies. Access is controlled in two separate places instead. Accreditation: INN runs the Sistema Nacional de Acreditación and accredits inspection bodies against NCh-ISO 17020:2012 under its accreditation regulation INN-R401. Accreditation is voluntary in itself but becomes obligatory wherever a technical regulation incorporates it; applications go through INN's SDAC portal on forms F407-21-01 and FD-D06-04, and accreditations are granted for five years, renewable, with surveillance evaluations during the term. Commercial access: the mining majors screen contractors through SICEP, the Sistema de Calificación de Empresas Proveedoras, which rates financial capacity, operational and technical capability, legal and labour compliance and risk prevention. A firm can be technically excellent and still not be biddable without SICEP standing. What separates firms that clear an audit from firms that collect findings is not the quality of the documentation but whether it describes what actually happens.
Source: INN, Organismos de Inspección accreditation page and accreditation FAQ (accessed August 2026), giving NCh-ISO 17020-2012 as the applicable standard, the SDAC application route at sdac.inn.cl, forms F407-21-01v02 and FD-D06-04v01, guidance DA-D06, criteria document DA-D22 v07, fee regulation INN-R410 v08, accreditation regulation INN-R401, the five-year renewable accreditation term with surveillance during the term, IAAC MLA founding membership and founding membership of Global ACI, successor to the merged ILAC and IAF; INN catalogue record for NCh-ISO9712:2018, "Ensayos no destructivos - Calificación y certificación del personal que realiza ensayos no destructivos", published 30 August 2018, shown as No Vigente; INN list of approved standards showing NCh3918:2026 and NCh3919:2026 on acoustic emission; Chile Decreto Supremo N° 132 (Ministerio de Minería), Reglamento de Seguridad Minera, published 7 February 2004, Articles 185, 188, 191 and 378, text read directly; Chile Decreto Supremo N° 10 (Ministerio de Salud, Subsecretaría de Salud Pública), Reglamento de calderas, autoclaves y equipos que utilizan vapor de agua, published 19 October 2013, superseding DS N° 48; INN accreditation certificate OI232 for NDT held by an accredited inspection body; SICEP public pages and Asociación de Industriales de Antofagasta material (accessed August 2026).
| Stage | What happens | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
| Stage 1 | Submit the application and proposed scope through INN's SDAC portal using forms F407-21-01 and FD-D06-04, and pay the fees set. | Where the paperwork is tested against itself |
| Stage 2 | INN reviews the management documentation against NCh-ISO 17020:2012 and the inspection body criteria document DA-D22 | Where the paperwork is tested against practice |
| Stage 3 | On-site evaluation at the declared premises plus witnessing of live inspections for each activity and method in the requested scope | Where the paperwork is tested against practice |
| Stage 4 | Correct non-conformities within the period INN sets and submit supporting evidence | Where the paperwork is tested against practice |
| Stage 5 | INN decision and grant of accreditation for a five-year period, published with the approved scope | Where the paperwork is tested against practice |
| Stage 6 | Surveillance evaluations during the term, and application for reaccreditation before the five years expire | Where the paperwork is tested against practice |
| Renewal | INN accreditation is granted for five years and may be renewed for further five-year cycles, with surveillance evaluations during the term to verify continued conformity; INN does not publish a fixed surveillance month on its public pages, so confirm the schedule in INN-R401 rather than assuming one. SICEP standing is a periodically updated diagnosis rather than a fixed-term certificate and lapses if the file is not maintained. Boiler and autoclave inspection under the Ministry of Health regulation runs on a frequency tied to equipment category; establish the category before quoting an interval to a client. | Diarised from the certificate date, not the last audit |
How long does INN / SICEP audit preparation take?
Document work — the written practice, procedures and quality manual — takes weeks. What cannot be compressed is documented experience and records history: on-the-job hours accrue in real time, and calibration and certification history cannot be back-filled. Firms that start when the audit is scheduled rather than announced clear it without findings.
What does Instituto Nacional de Normalización (INN), which is both the national standards body and the national accreditation body; Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería (SERNAGEOMIN) for mine safety; the SEREMI de Salud for boilers, autoclaves and steam equipment; SICEP, administered by the Asociación de Industriales de Antofagasta, as the mining supplier register look at first?
Records, not manuals. A manual states intent; records show practice. The usual opening move is to take a completed job and trace it back to the technician's certification, the instrument's calibration, the approved procedure and the report — and see whether all four reconcile.
What are the most common INN / SICEP findings?
The written practice is a generic template that was never tailored to the methods and techniques the company actually sells, and the Level III who signed it is no longer engaged, Level II technicians certified in UT are performing phased array with no separate technique qualification and no documented examination, Vision records missing for technicians on site, or dated more than twelve months before the inspection, Marketing claims "acreditado por el INN" when the INN scope covers only some methods or only one address; INN accreditation is granted against a specific annexed scope and site. Almost all of them are evidence problems rather than capability problems: the work was done correctly and the proof was not kept, or was kept somewhere the firm could not retrieve during the audit.
Can a consultant attend the INN / SICEP audit?
Yes, and it changes the outcome. Someone who has sat through the same audit at other firms answers in the auditor's own terms, produces the right record without a search, and stops a clarification turning into a finding. The firm still owns every answer — the consultant does not speak for it.
What happens after a INN / SICEP finding?
A corrective action with a deadline, and evidence of closure at the next audit. Repeat findings are treated far more seriously than first ones, because they show the corrective-action system itself is not working.
Does INN / SICEP require a pre-audit or gap assessment?
Not as a requirement, but the arithmetic favours it: a gap assessment finds the same evidence problems the auditor would, without the finding attached, and while there is still time to fix them. Firms entering their first INN / SICEP audit blind typically collect findings that a sampling exercise would have caught.
What the auditor asks to see
- Práctica Escrita to ASNT SNT-TC-1A, signed and dated by the Level III, naming every method, level and technique and the education, training, experience and examination requirements for each
- Certificados de calificación y certificación del personal by method and level, with general, specific and practical examination papers and grading records
- Registros de agudeza visual (Jaeger N.º 1 or equivalent) and colour differentiation, dated within the last twelve months
- Procedimientos de END approved by the Level III and traceable to ASME BPVC Section V, AWS D1.1, API or the client's own specification
- Certificados de calibración de equipos plus verification records for reference blocks, transducers and gauges
- Manual de gestión conforming to NCh-ISO 17020:2012, with the impartiality analysis and the type A, B or C declaration, where INN accreditation is sought
- Formulario F407-21-01 (solicitud de evaluación) and the scope form FD-D06-04, submitted through SDAC, with fees per INN-R410
- SICEP file: financial statements, technical and equipment inventory, legal and labour compliance certificates and the risk-prevention programme
- Autorización sanitaria and radiation-protection authorisation from the SEREMI de Salud for industrial radiography sources and operators
Findings to close before the audit
- The written practice is a generic template that was never tailored to the methods and techniques the company actually sells, and the Level III who signed it is no longer engaged
- Level II technicians certified in UT are performing phased array with no separate technique qualification and no documented examination
- Vision records missing for technicians on site, or dated more than twelve months before the inspection
- Marketing claims "acreditado por el INN" when the INN scope covers only some methods or only one address; INN accreditation is granted against a specific annexed scope and site
- Wire-rope inspection reports for hoisting installations do not record the parameters DS 132 Article 188 names, namely flat wear, number of broken wires, useful diameter and oxidation, so they do not establish the service limit
- Extraction-rope determinations carried out at intervals longer than six months, or balance-rope determinations longer than twelve months, contrary to DS 132 Article 188
- SICEP file allowed to lapse or left at a lower category, so the firm is filtered out at prequalification irrespective of its technical scope
- No traceable link between the acceptance criteria quoted on the report and the code edition the client's specification actually calls up
Related: the INN / SICEP overview, outsourced ASNT Level III cover, written practice development, NDT procedure development, a programme gap assessment, interim Level III cover.