Conformity Assessment and the Role of Laboratory Accreditation and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC)

摘要

Accreditation is a third-party recognition of the competence of an organization to perform specified tasks. For laboratory accreditation, the recognition is by an authoritative body that has international credibility through its signatory status as a member of the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MBA) of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC). The competence of the laboratory in question is for a specific range of tests (generally referred to as the scope). Thus we have formal recognition of laboratories as being competent to carry out a specific set of tests. All MRA signatories use the ISO/IEC (International Organisation for Standardisation/International Electrotechnical Commission) standard 17025 as the basis of the assessment, and indeed, the assessment is to give evidence that the laboratory fully complies with the standard. But laboratory accreditation is much more than this. It is a full peer assessment of the competence of the accredited laboratory. The peer assessors are carefully selected by the accreditation body for their expertise in the specific type of testing that is carried out in the laboratory they are accrediting. All ILAC signatory (i.e., MBA member) accreditation bodies have formal procedures using independent professionals who regularly verify that the technical experts used as peer assessors are competent in their specific field of testing and are appropriate to be used as technical assessors. With accreditation of a laboratory to ISO/IEC 17025, by an ILAC MBA signatory (member), one really can have confidence in the reliability of the result. It is not just a check that the laboratory operates as described in the standard, but much more.