Please Read Before Beginning the Application Process

Before beginning the process, it is important to know a few things about the process to avoid frustration and accomplish your objectives the first time you participate.

How Long Will This Take, How You Begin, and General Cautions

A "snapshot" of the initial application process and expected time needed:

• As to the time needed, in summary:

• Completing application and sending payment: 60-90 minutes.

• Completing Safety Program Review: 20-40 hours should reasonably be expected.

• Submitting Review and being assigned an auditor 1-3 days.

• Sending reference material to reviewer: 1-3 days.

• Reviewer deciding whether to accept: 1-3 days.

• Reviewer completing review: up to 30 days.




• As you can see, it is not wise to wait until a few days before you are to be on a job site or wish to bid to begin this process! You should begin this process at least two months before you need to bid or be on the job site.




• In order to use this system or participate in it you must create a user name and password. To avoid trouble down the road, be sure that the CEO or owner of the company knows these:

• Employee turnover is a reality and this is the key to you using the system, therefore, the person most likely to be at the company for a very long time should know this information

• You may enter multiple email addresses to receive notifications




• Remember that there is an auditing function to this program: no contractor will be certified until they are audited, so owners and others can be assured that what you say you do, you actually do. A random number of participating (non-certified) contractors will also be audited. It is essential, then, that you not "guess" or exaggerate beyond what you can prove. Owners are notified when a contractor's status changes and you would of course not want your status to change based upon the results of an audit.




• The Certification Program is entirely web-based and all communication is through email. Nearly every email is generated by a software program, not by a person. A strength of the program, however, is the number of emails that are generated by the system. At each important juncture and each time your company or MICCS takes a step in the program, you will receive an email about the status of the action that you just took and instructions as to the next step (if there are any).




• After creating a user name and password, you can complete an application, which should take no more than 15 to 30 minutes. Some important cautions:

• The person that you select as the person who MICCS will contact for all certification related matters must be someone who always checks their email on a daily basis and who you can reliably expect to be with your company. If this person leaves your company, it is your responsibility to change this in the application, which you can do anytime by selecting "edit company application." Remember that you can add multiple email accounts.

• Part of the application is indicating the type of work you normally do: how you answer these questions is very important, as they determine which elements of the SPRS are available to you (and completing them can bolster your score) and which are mandatory for you (and if you do not receive an average or better on these elements you will not be certified even if you pass every other criteria).

• You do not have to complete the application in one sitting. You can "save and exit" and revisit the application should you come to a section that you are not prepared to answer.




• Before MICCS can process any application, the appropriate fees must be paid. If you pay them before you actually apply (which would expedite your application), it would be wise to note on the check, what the check is for (since the MICCS office will at that point have no record that you are going to participate). Fees should be made payable to MICCS and sent to the following address:

MICCS Certification Program

200 S. Meridian Street, Suite 410

Indianapolis, IN 46225




Pertinent Fees

	MICCS Member Companies	Non MICCS Member Companies
First Application	$450	$600
Resubmitting for rescore	300	500
Annual Renewal	400	550




• The "heart" of the system is the Safety Program Review (SPRS): this is the online document that must be completed by providing detailed information about where in your safety program or other document, the information requested can be found. This will require substantial research and time, There is a downloadable version of the SPRS on the Certification website. The first thing you should do is download it, and then decide who in your company is most capable of completing it. Then, even before your company applies, you can begin work on finding these elements in your program (you might understandably not have all of them) and noting where they can be found. This needs to be very detailed. For example, for each item that you have in your safety program, you will ultimately need to indicate precisely where it can be found. For example, "Safety Program, Section 5, page 2, paragraph 3 (if it is a long paragraph you can even indicate which lines in the paragraph). MICCS pays reviewers to find the elements in your SPRS that you indicate are in your program: they must be efficient. If the reviewer receives your program (discussed later) and they determine that you have not provided enough detail for them to find the elements you claim to have, they can reject your submission, requiring that you re-do it. Assuming that you DO provide good references, the process of doing so can reasonably be expected to take a person 40 hours to complete. If they have to re-do it, you may need to double that time.




• After you have paid and submitted an application, you will receive an email and a link will appear on your company's page allowing you to start work entering the references for those sections of the SPRS that are applicable to your company (active, lightly bolded links) and mandatory (active, bolder links).




• When you have completed the SPRS, hit "submit" (in all cases, never hit the "submit" button more than once: doing so more than once can wreak havoc with your company record.




• You will receive an email indicating that your Review has been received, and you will be assigned a reviewer and told where to send the material that you have referenced in the Review. You will need to complete this process within two weeks of the email.




• Within a reasonable time, the Reviewer will alert you whether or not the SPRS you selected and the material you sent were sufficiently referenced for a review. If not, you will be so notified and the material will be sent back to you or to expedite matters, you can pick it up from the Reviewer's office.




• The Reviewer must complete the Review within 30 days of receiving it.




• When the review is complete, you will receive an email stating that such is the case and indicating whether or not you are eligible to be a "MICCS Certified" contractor. At this point, regardless of whether or not you are qualify for certification, you are "participating" or have attained "Qualified Status". If you do not qualify for "MICCS Certified" status, then you will be provided the reasons why you are not qualified. Your safety program review - with commentary - will also be available to you via a link on your company's page.




• If you qualify to be "MICCS Certified", then you will be contacted by a reviewer to schedule a Home Office Audit, which needs to be scheduled and completed within 60 days of the email informing you of your status as "certifiable pending audit." The auditor will explain in detail how to prepare for the audit which should last 3-4 hours. The auditor also has broad discretion to allow some flexibility: it is their goal both to educate and to affirm that what the contractor indicates they do, they actually do. Some discretion is allowed should the contractor need additional time or need to take some action, to be able to prove any particular element.