by Dr. George Anastasopoulos
ISO/IEC 17025 was first issued in 1999 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC). It is the single most important standard for calibration and testing laboratories around the world, with more than 50.000 laboratories accredited, globally.
At the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) General Assembly in October 2013 the Laboratory Committee (which is composed of stakeholder representatives of accredited testing and calibration) recommended that ILAC request that ISO/CASCO establish a new work item to comprehensively revise ISO/IEC 17025:2005. CASCO is the ISO committee that works on issues relating to conformity assessment. CASCO develops policy and publishes standards related to conformity assessment; it does not perform conformity assessment activities. CASCO’s standards development activities are carried out by working groups made up of experts put forward by the ISO member bodies. The experts are individuals who possess specific knowledge relating to the activities to be undertaken by the working group.
9/11/2017 Update: The final article of this series has been published and can be found here.
