Certification and accreditation

In many countries, both accreditation and certification bodies are commercial organizations that operate without government funding and therefore they are governed by supply and demand. 

The certification business has grown enormously in the last ten years. The International Accreditation Forum (lAF) recorded 616 accredited certification bodies in January 1999. The experience of the vehicle manufacturers with ISO 9000 certification led them to question the wisdom of so many certification bodies chasing the same business in a competitive market. The results seemed to indicate that cost reductions by the certification bodies led to a decline in the quality of auditing and that was the opposite of what the vehicle manufacturers wanted. The vehicle manufacturers had not seen a significant rise in product quality as a result of ISO 9000 and they believed this was partially due to the quality of the accreditation and certification schemes being operated as well as inadequacies in the quality system standard. When the four national automotive schemes were launched, great emphasis was placed on regulating more closely the accreditation and certification schemes. From a customer perspective, the ISO 10011 scheme had some particular problems ... 

Although the schemes exist to satisfy the needs of industry, industry has no power to verify that the standards are being maintained by the accreditation and certification bodies. 

As the uncertainty of the mean is now related to the mass used for analysis and it is based on a careful evaluation of the element distribution in the material, this approach could help to evaluate further the total uncertainty budget for various analytical techniques as is required in accreditation and certification campaigns. 

This presentation is focused on explaining the significance of accreditation and certification for laboratories and illustrates the usefulness of both procedures. The implementation of these procedures in laboratories is described, pointing out their similarities and differences. Reference is made to some publications. The discussion reflects the existing practice. 

Definitions referring to these activities are given in ISO/IEC Guide 2 2004, EN 45020 2006 and some other normative documents, namely ISO/IEC 9000 2005 and ISO/IEC 17000 2004. Definitions for accreditation and certification given in ISO/IEC Guide 2 are used in the following discussion. 

The role of laboratories is manifold. The main components are testing and calibration which require measurements and comparisons. This is the area to focus on in the discussion of accreditation vs. certification . Other services provided, e.g. development of new methods, consultancy etc., may lead to different conclusions with regard to the relative importance of accreditation and certification. 

Accreditation and Certification are components of the common technical infrastructure referred to above (see slides 8 and 10). They represent important mechanisms to facilitate free movement of goods. In a general sense they are dealing with similar issues, mainly because they assess and declare compliance with standards. 

A survey was carried out in 1996 by ILAC to evaluate the status of laboratories worldwide with regard to accreditation and certification as well as the needs of their customers and the trends in the market. Up to 500 laboratories responded leading to a series of comments and suggestions. 

This requires some cooperation between accreditation and certification bodies such cooperation would be appreciated by laboratories since it would provide them with flexibility, lower costs and man-hours and reduce duphcation in documentation and assessments. 

The aim of organic standards is to ensure that animals produced and sold as organic are raised and marketed according to defined principles. Standards and state regulations in conjunction with accreditation and certification are therefore very important as guarantees for the consumer. 

The Commission of the European Union has harmonized the national accreditation systems. Unique criteria were developed for the operation of the test laboratories and for their accreditation and certification. The result of those harmonization policies is the series of directives Euronorm EN 45000 (Table 9.3). At present, all accreditations are performed on the basis of EN 45000. 

Information on audits of authorities (brief history and current inspection status, accreditations, and certifications)... 

International Organization for Standardization. 2001. ISO directory of ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 accreditation and certification bodies.Weh citation www.iso.ch/iso/ en/PDFs/accr bodi es dir.rtf... 

An extra impulse to the use of accreditation and certification since 1985 is the so-called New Approach to product regulation and especially the Global Approach to certification and testing. The aim of the New Approach was and is to remove technical barriers to trade (caused by health and safety regulation) and to stimulate free movement of products within the European Community. The Global Approach lays down general guidelines and detailed procedures for... 

In the context of many commercial activities among participants in the economy, and in the context of mandatory regulations, the added value of conformity assessment is the level of confidence that the economic partners have that the subject of certification meets their expectations. In this context the value of certification is dependent on the perceived integrity of the accreditation and certification structures involved. 

The integrity of the accreditation and certification structures must be assured. The mixing of conflicting business interests (certification/auditing and consulting) should be more effectively banned. 

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has been a world leader in codes, standards, accreditation, and certification for over a century. These programs have now been extended to include the registration (certification) of quality systems in conformance with the standards set by the International Organization of Standardization (ISO). 

ASME uses quality system auditors experienced in the above-listed fields who have been certified to the international auditor qualification standard ISO 10011-2. Registration decision and policy making are conducted within the firamework of the ASME codes, standards, accreditation, and certification committee structure. The use of volunteers from industry and government provides for a high quality program that is administered in a fair, impartial, and professional manner. 

ACCREDITATION AND CERTIFICATION Board on Accreditation, R istration, and Certification (BABO Alan Bagner (212) 591-8580 Boiler and Pressure ssel Accreditation Ronald Berberich... 

ACCREDITATION AND CERTIFICATION Board on Accreditation, Registration, and Certification (BARC)... 

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