ISO/IEC 17025:2017 Accreditation Consulting

LOS ANGELES, June 11, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- What is ISO/IEC 17025:2017 ?

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ISO/IEC 17025:2017 is used for meeting and certifying the general requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories. Unlike other Quality Management System Standards like ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, this standard adds the concept of competence and applies it to those laboratories that produce testing and calibration results.

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Laboratories use ISO 17025 accreditation to ensure that they implement a quality management system that focuses on the organization's ability to produce consistent and valid results.

ISO 17025:2017 mainly comprises of two sections:

1. Process Requirements 2. Management Requirements

Process Requirements deal with the methodology, competence of workforce, test methods and test/calibration equipment.

Management requirements are basically related to the effectiveness and operations of the Quality Management System inside the laboratory.

There are two ways of implementing ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accreditation:

1. Implement and meet Process requirements and Management System requirements 2. Implement ISO 9001 and meet Process Requirements

General requirements related to ISO/IEC 17025:20175 are:

• Impartiality: The management of the entity/Laboratory should be committed to impartiality
• Confidentiality: Information of the customers or individuals should be kept confidential until and unless it is required by law to disclose information.

Structural requirements include:

• The Laboratory should be a legal entity
• The Laboratory should identify a layer of management that holds the overall responsibility of the laboratory
• A proper documentation of the range of the laboratory activities
• Activities should be carried out in such a way that it meets the requirements of all the stakeholders
• The laboratory should have a staff that is capable of performing their relevant duties with effectiveness.
• The laboratory's management should ensure effective communication and integrity of the management at the workplace.

ISO/IEC 17025:2017 includes the following resource requirements:

• General: Laboratory should have all the necessary resources including personnel, facilities, equipment, systems and support activities in order to perform its activities.
• Personnel: Other than maintaining personnel training and other records laboratory should ensure that all personnel working should have the competence to perform and communicate respective laboratory activities.
• Facilities and Environmental conditions: Environmental influence matters a lot in this particular sector. Therefore, it is essential to make sure that facilities and environmental conditions should not affect the legitimacy of results.
• Equipment: Laboratory should have access to all the essential equipment and the equipment should be capable of taking measurements accurately.

ISO/IEC 17025:2017 Accreditation Process Requirements:

• Review of requests, tenders, and contracts
• Selection, verification, and validation of methods
• Sampling
• Handling of test/calibration items
• Technical records
• Evaluation of measurement uncertainty
• Ensuring of the validity of results
• Reporting of results
• Complaints
• Non-conforming work
• Control of data and information management

Following are the management system requirements that an entity has to address:

• Management system documentation
• Control of management system documents
• Control of records
• Actions to address risks and opportunities
• Improvement
• Corrective action
• Management reviews
• Regular internal audits should be conducted by the organization to make testing and calibration processes better than they already were.

Implementation ISO/IEC 17025:2017 brings the following benefits:

• Sound management system
• International recognition
• Prevents defects
• Competitive edge over non-certified organizations
• Improved customer service
• Reduces waste
• Continuous improvement in system
• Regular inspection of laboratories
• Increased accuracy
• Cost saving.    

ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accreditation GlenView Group, Inc (888) 405-2790

 

SOURCE GlenView Group, Inc.