ISO / IEC 17025 – Calibration & Testing
ISO/IEC 17025:2005 as a standard has all of the requirements that testing and calibration laboratories have to meet in order to demonstrate that :
- they operate a quality system,
- are technically competent and ,
- are able to produce technically valid results.
Like ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 17025 is a certifiable standard. However, unlike ISO 9001, third party auditing of the laboratory is carried out by the national organisation responsible for accreditation Laboratories are therefore “accredited” under ISO/IEC 17025, rather than “certificated” The relevant agency for the UK is UKAS and for Ireland it is INAB.
There are two main parts to ISO/IEC 17025 – Management Requirements and Technical Requirements.
The key elements to be addressed under Management Requirements are very similar to ISO 9001 and include:
- Organization
- Quality system
- Control of documents & records
- Review of requests, tenders and contracts
- Purchasing services and supplies & the subcontracting of tests and calibrations
- Service to client
- Complaints
- Control of nonconforming testing and/or calibration work
- Corrective action & preventive action
- Internal audits
- Management reviews
The Technical Requirements on the other hand, address very specific requirements for a laboratory or calibration house. These include:
- Personnel – Accommodation and environmental conditions
- Test and calibration methods and method validation
- Equipment
- Measurement traceability
- Sampling
- Handling of test and calibration items
- Assuring the quality of test and calibration results
- Reporting the results
Jordan Business Systems specialises in putting in simple uncomplicated quality management systems that meet the requirements of the ISO/IEC 17025 standard, without unnecessary administration.
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