Accreditation

Accreditation is a third-party attestation related to a conformity assessment body (such as certification body, inspection body or laboratory) conveying formal demonstration of its competence to carry out specific conformity assessment tasks (such as certification, inspection and testing).

An authoritative body that performs accreditation is called an 'accreditation body'. The International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) provide international recognitions to accreditation bodies. There are many internationally-recognized accreditation bodies approved by the IAF and ILAC.

The Emirates International Accreditation Centre (EIAC) is the largest accreditation body in Middle East region, whereas in South Asia the Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC) and Quality Council of India (QCI) are the largest. In East Asia, the China National Accreditation Board is the largest, while the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) is the largest in Europe. The National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) and the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JAS-ANZ) being the largest in the Oceania region, with the South African National Accreditation System being the largest in Africa.

For most of the accreditation schemes, international standards issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) are used.

Fields involved

Accreditation processes are used in a wide variety of fields:

Accreditation standards

Many accreditation bodies, such as the UKAS, EIAC, EGAC, PNAC, IAS, operate according to processes developed by the ISO as specified in ISO/IEC 17011.[1] Accredited entities in specific sectors must provide evidence to the accreditation body that they conform to other standards in the same series:

  • ISO/IEC 17020: "General criteria for the operation of various types of bodies performing inspection" (2012)
  • ISO/IEC 17021-1: "Conformity assessment. Requirements for bodies providing audit and certification of management systems" (2015)
  • ISO/IEC 17024: "Conformity Assessment. General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons" (2012)
  • ISO/IEC 17025: "General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories" (2017)
gollark: Just insist that people use your full name and title in place of pronouns?
gollark: "[name]'s Majesty"?
gollark: As I said, I do not wish to remain constantly subscribed to pronoun newsfeeds for whoever I talk to.
gollark: If someone interprets me making minor a mistake and/or not constantly remaining up-to-date on pronouns as a particularly bad act of aggression, they are probably not worth talking to anyway.
gollark: People can also get it wrong by *accident*, and this is probably more common.

See also
International agencies
National agencies

References
  1. "ISO/IEC 17011:2017 Conformity assessment — Requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies". International Organization for Standardization. 2017.

Asia: https://eiac.gov.ae/ https://www.cnas.org.cn/ http://www.pnac.gov.pk/

Americas

Europe

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