Filtern
Dokumenttyp
- Zeitschriftenartikel (3) (entfernen)
Sprache
- Englisch (3)
Referierte Publikation
- ja (3)
Schlagworte
- ILAC (3) (entfernen)
Peer evaluation is used by the international accreditation organisations IAF and ILAC as a tool to harmonise the results of accreditation of conformity assessment bodies and as a control mechanism to ensure constantly competent services according to harmonized standards. Upon positive evaluation outcome, the accreditation body may join an Arrangement (MLA/MRA) between accreditation bodies, confirming systematic reliability and competence to the market. The objective of these Arrangements is that they will cover all accreditation bodies in all countries in the world, thus eliminating the need for suppliers of products or services to be certified in each country where they sell their products or services. This article is to aid single accreditation bodies wishing to sign these Arrangements in the future, and, furthermore, to communicate the procedure and the relevance of evaluation to the public in order to build up confidence in such Arrangements.
The peer evaluation of single accreditation bodies in order to sign an Arrangement for Recognition of the international accreditation organizations International Accreditation Forum, Inc. (IAF) and International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC), whether performed by Regional Accreditation Groups or directly by IAF and/or ILAC, is standard practice. The fundamental requirements for such evaluations are well specified in documents. However, the careful evaluation of all their Arrangement members poses an enormous logistic task for IAF and ILAC, and the signatories can be evaluated more thoroughly within their Regional Groups. Hence, IAF and ILAC typically evaluate only the Regional Accreditation Groups and accept all signatories of a Regional Accreditation Group once successfully evaluated by their respective Regional Group. However, the requirements for the evaluation of a Regional Group are extensive, and the evaluation procedure is highly complicated and must be conducted very carefully in order to assure that the results of accreditation can be trusted. This article describes the evaluation procedure used by IAF and/or ILAC for Regional Groups wishing to sign the IAF/ILAC Arrangement. We wish to inform and to aid these Regional Groups setting out for evaluation, and also to build confidence in the IAF/ILAC Arrangements.