Standard ISO/IEC 17011:2004 for analytical laboratory accreditation

Arlene Fox (Senior Director of Proficiency Test)  on December 2005 issue of “Inside Laboratory Management” Magazine from AOAC.

With goal of achieving one-stop accreditation and conformity assessment, ISO/IEC 17011:2004 “Conformity assessment – General Requirements for accreditation  bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies”  is a standard to specify the general requirements for accreditation bodies.   Evaluation of accrediting bodies against this standard is the basis for “Mutual Recognition Arrangements” (MRA). 
The ISO/IEC 17011:2004 replaces 3 documents: ISO/IEC Guide 58, ISO/IEC Guide 61, ISO/IEC Tr 17010.
In conclusion, ISO/IEC 17011 promotes MRAs to facilitate one-stop accreditation and conformity assessment. These arrangements help cross-border trade by eliminating the need for re-testing or re-inspecting.
MRAs promote the acceptance of equivalence of the accreditation  results so that multiple accreditations are no longer necessary.
www.aoac.org 

 

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported