ISO/IEC 17025 General requirements for the competency of testing and calibration laboratories

ISO/IEC 17025 General requirements for the competency of testing and calibration laboratories. 

Accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025 requires that:

• The laboratory has a quality system meeting requirements of ISO 9001.
• The lab facility has adequate equipment to perform its testing or calibration tasks.
• The lab facility has adequate laboratory personnel with the competence to perform the calibration and testing.
• In addition most accreditation schemes in the U.S. require proficiency testing amongst the laboratories.

Therefore, ISO/IEC 17025 is recognition of laboratory competence, while ISO 9001 alone is simply recognition of conformance to a quality system.

Note:  A specific version of this standard for Medical Laboratories has been developed.  See our ISO 15189 page.

Drivers of ISO/IEC 17025 are:

• ISO/TS 16949 – Requirement for outside laboratories performing inspection, testing or calibration (Accreditation required). Reference 7.6.3.2
• Fastener Quality Act – Requirement for outside laboratories doing inspection and testing for manufacturers of fasteners for sale in the United States (Accreditation required).

Intent

The intent of ISO/IEC 17025 is to provide testing and calibration laboratories with a common standard to apply while permitting third party accreditation.

Applicability

It applies to testing and calibration laboratories seeking laboratory competence.

Feedback from Our 17025 Services

Feed Back from some of our ISO/IEC 17025 Clients:

"We are receiving many inquiries from companies that are looking for 17025 certs for their gages, which have in turn lead to several new customers.

Implementation was a lot of work at the time, but looking back on it, it does not seem to be as bad as we thought.

Many of our big customers that work with the auto industry required it and now we are finding even the smaller companies are requiring it.

Regarding the calibration of our lab equipment, we have a lot more confidence in them being right."

Ottawa Gage

"The implementation was better than anticipated. We could not have done it without you.

Back in April of 2000, it was important to implement for our customers, but as we progressed, we know it was important because it is an added benefit to our product line.

The benefits haven't proven to be as good as we expected with respect to generating more sales for the company, although, our customer base has expanded because of it. But with the slow economy the past year, we are hoping it will generate more sales in the future.

Eagle Group was wonderful to work with. You made the process seem somewhat painless!!! Really, we could have never done it without you. When Ken came from LAB for the original audit he asked who are consulting firm was, when I told him he said, "Oh, well then I know I won't find anything, they cover all the bases"."

Michigan Spline

Training Offered

ISO/IEC 17025 Awareness/Overview

Measurement Uncertainty

Internal Auditor Training 

Advanced Internal Quality Auditor Training

Business Operating System (BOS)

Customer Satisfaction

Implementation Workshop

Process Flowcharting Workshop

Team Oriented Problem Solving (8D)

Document Writing

Online Training Courses

Services Offered

Initial System Evaluation ("Gap Analysis")

Documentation Development

Implementation Assistance and Guidance

Final System Evaluation ("Dress Rehearsal")

Hands-on Auditing

Contract Internal Auditing Program

Compliance Auditing