ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification are frequently used in both private and public sectors to increase confidence in the products and services provided by organizations, between partners in business-to-business relations, in the selection of suppliers in supply chains and in the right to tender for procurement contracts. IAF and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) have jointly produced...
Certification is a “third-party attestation related to products, processes, systems or persons,” as defined by ISO/IEC 17000 Conformity Assessment—Vocabulary and General Principles. Certification is most often associated with ISO 9001 and the environmental management systems standard ISO 14001. However, certification programs exist for a range of management systems standards, including the ISO/IEC 27001 program for information security management, the...
An organisation that provides certification, testing, calibration, inspection and other conformity assessment services can seek accreditation. An accredited body has demonstrated that it fully meets the requirements of relevant national and international standards. The criteria for determining a certification body’s competence are based on the relevant national or international standard (such as ISO/IEC 17024, ISO/IEC 17065, ISO/IEC 17021) and...
IAF publishes a number of documents to communicate policy decisions and rules, share best practices, and support accreditation body and conformity assessment body operations. These documents, which are under constant review, are core to the effective operation of IAF, and support IAF’s objective of accredited once accepted everywhere. All IAF documents are clearly categorised depending on the nature or...
Copy of the text of the updated MoU agreed between IAF, ILAC and ISO. The MoU was signed by Randy Dougherty, the Chairman of IAF, Peter Unger, the Chairman of ILAC and Rob Steele, the Secretary-General of ISO, on April 10, 2014 at a ceremony in Geneva.
This joint IAF-ISO document sets out the outcomes that are to be expected as a result of accredited management systems certification. The intent is to promote a common focus throughout the entire conformity assessment chain in order to achieve these expected outcomes and thereby enhance the value and relevance of accredited certification. The document sets out a high-level overview into...
A workshop on IAF MD 20:2016 Generic Competence for AB Assessors: Application to ISO/IEC 17011 was held in October 2016 at the Joint IAF-ILAC Annual Meetings in New Delhi. The entire workshop is available for viewing on the IAF-ILAC Youtube channel and the associated documents are available below.
A workshop on ISO/IEC 17024 Conformity assessment -- General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons was held in October 2017 at the Joint IAF-ILAC meetings in Vancouver.
Workshop Cooperative Effort from the WG on Certification of Persons (ISO/IEC 17024)
Presentation by Dr. George Anastasopoulos - Director, Conformity Assessment, IAS
Components of a Competence Based Certification Program
Presentation by Dr. Vijay Krishna, Sr. Director, Credentialing Programs
Appropriate methodology and procedures (e.g. collecting and maintaining statistical data) shall be documented and implemented in order to affirm, at justified defined intervals, the fairness, validity reliability and general performance of each examination, and that all identified deficiencies are corrected.
Outcomes Workshop on Persons Certification (ISO/IEC 17024) -Tuesday, 24 October 2017, 13:30 – 21:30 -Vancouver, Canada
To ensure consistency in the implementation of its standards, CASCO has set up a clarification process. Information on the clarification process, including previous requests for clarification, eligibility for requests and the associated form, are available at https://www.iso.org/resources-for-conformity-assessment.html.
ISO has made available a collection of free publications of interest to the standards development and conformity assessment community at the following links: https://www.iso.org/publication-list.html?t=standards_development and https://www.iso.org/publication-list.html?t=conformity
Also available is a guidance document for liaison organizations on engaging stakeholders and building consensus (http://www.iso.org/iso/guidance_liaison-organizations.pdf). This document provides specific principles and guidance to liaisons on involving their stakeholders throughout the various stages of development of ISO work. IAF Liaison representatives who participate in ISO's work are encouraged to review sections 3.1 & 3.2 of this document to ensure effective...
For some of the recently published CASCO standards, the experts of the Working Groups who developed them have prepared a Power point presentation to highlight the main elements of the document and show the differences with the former version. The slides can be used by anyone making a presentation or simply to learn about the new standard and can be...
The CASCO toolbox includes helpful links to basic conformity assessment terms and concepts, case studies of specific industry sectors from around the world, relevant international standards, guides and other documents containing more detail, or further sources of information.
This document was developed by a Joint Working Group of IEC, ILAC and IAF for assessment teams conducting unified assessments in the electrotechnical sector and provides background and guidance on how unified assessments are prepared, conducted and completed. This document contains guidance on the management of the on-site assessment of Certification Bodies and Testing Laboratories against ISO/IEC 17065 and ISO/IEC...
This joint IAF-ISO document presents the outcomes that are expected as a result of accredited certification to ISO 22000.
October 2024
Source: EOQ - June 2015 The European Organization for Quality (EOQ) has celebrated the recipients of the EOQ presidential Georges Borel Awards at the EOQ Presidential Meeting, in Athens/Greece on June 10th, 2015. By definition, Georges Borel Award has born from the idea that the development and the promotion of the European Quality Movement is done by outstanding individuals who...
Source: UNIDO The five-day course in the capital of Mozambique, Maputo, was organized by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Academy, with support from the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) and the Network on Metrology, Accreditation and Standardization for Developing Countries (DCMAS). “Trade has long been recognized as a potential engine for...
The 2017 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 23) began on 06 November in Bonn, Germany, with a focus on governments working to increase climate action and the showcasing, fostering and launching of global climate action initiatives by all actors with a view towards better coordination. In collaboration with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the European Committee for...
A communique of that first meeting is accessible on the member's side of the IAF website. Consider all of the concepts embodied in one paragraph of that communique: "The consensus" was to cooperate with organizations who operate similar accreditation programs in exchanging information and procedures in meetings to be known as the International Accreditation Forum. The meetings are intended to...
Source: European Accreditation (EA) The communication campaign that aims at emphasizing EA's values, achievements and prospects on the occasion of its 15th anniversary is being continued with a few words by Martin Stadler, the Vice-Chair of the EA Advisory Board responsible for the EAAB Industry College. Martin Stadler outlines EA's role towards the sector of industry and how far the...
Invitations were extended to respondents to an OECD Survey on International Regulatory Co-operation, including IAF (represented by Randy Dougherty, IAF Chair and President), ILAC (represented by Merih Malmqvist Nilsson, ILAC Vice-Chair, and ILAC and IAF liaison to OECD), ISO (represented by Kevin McKinley, ISO Deputy Secretary-General), OIML/BIPM (represented by Peter Mason, CIML President), and WTO (represented by Devin McDaniels, WTO...
In September, ISO published the newest version of its ISO 9001 standard, ISO 9001:2015 Quality management systems - Requirements. The revision was drafted by the ISO working group ISO/TC 176/SC 2/WG 24, on which Balakrishnan Venkataraman (NABCB) and John Knappenberger (ANAB) contributed input on behalf of IAF. The following is an ISO press release on the publication: The latest...
The study focused on the Asian region and involved a survey, interviews with purchasers, and visits to certified organisations. The key findings include: Economic benefits: There are clear empirical economic benefits to the implementation of accredited certified quality management systems. Credibility of ISO 9001: In general, the perception of accredited certification to ISO 9001 in the region is positive....
Using data submitted by Certification Bodies accredited by IAF Members, the Survey covers eight standards: ISO 9001 (quality management systems), ISO 14001 (environmental management systems), ISO 50001 (energy management systems), ISO 27001 (information security management systems), ISO 22000 (food safety management systems), ISO/TS 16949 (quality management systems for the automotive sector), ISO 13485 (quality management systems for medical devices) and...
This means more consistency and integrity for GLOBALG.A.P. certificates issued as part of the Integrated Farm Assurance scheme around the world. GLOBALG.A.P. is only working with those Accreditation Bodies that are in the IAF MLA for product certification. Presently we have 35 ABs that are recognised by GLOBALG.A.P. that are likely to extend their scope of the IAF MLA...
During the 2015 CASCO meetings in Madrid, an interviewer from the Spanish Association for Standardisation and Certification (AENOR) had the chance to sit down with Randy Dougherty (IAF President and Chair) to discuss the structure of IAF, the role of the IAF MLA in facilitating trade, the transitions to 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015, certification as a tool to enter new...
1. ARAC membership in IAF ARAC and IAF Chairs signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the margin of the ILAC & IAF General Assembly in Seoul, South Korea on 24th October 2013. 2. Technical Cooperation 2.1 ARAC - APLAC In the margin of the ILAC and IAF General Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, ARAC and APLAC...
Andrea Barroso Melo Monteiro de Queiroz (Development Support Committee Chair) and Joan Brough-Kerrebyn (Technical Committee Secretary) participated on behalf of IAF in the Developing Countries in Metrology, Accreditation and Standardization (DCMAS) Network meeting on June 29, 2017. The DCMAS network, which consists of representatives from international organizations working to encourage and implement metrology, accreditation and standardization in developing economies, meets...
By Grant Ramaley (Dental Trade Alliance) Every patient in the world deserves safe and effective care when they go to the doctor. Taking care of seven billion patients is a shared responsibility among tens of thousands of medical device manufacturers worldwide. Everything from gene-altering devices used to cure cancer to root canal fillings; they all play a critical role...
