Is There a Difference In: Accreditation, Compliance and Competence?

Who do you trust to tell you what your parts measure and how the parts compare to the standards of 3D CAD / 2D drawing specifications?

How do you know that you can trust them in the first place?

There is a clear distinction between a testing / calibration laboratory that actually can prove accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025 and those who only claim “compliance to” the standard.

Let’s start from the beginning. Shortly after the end of World War II, in October 1946, 25 countries met in London to discuss the need for an organization to standardize the way the world approached manufacturing of goods, and services in order to ensure the quality and safety for the general public. From this meeting came the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) which creates the standards that most of us work from daily, whether we realize it or not.

Prior to the formation of ISO each nation had its own technical standards when it came to goods and services. This made for trade of products that were suspect in quality or possibly dangerous to human use or consumption, but made to the acceptable standards of the individual selling nation.

Accreditation

In 1978 ISO came to the conclusion that there needed to be more oversight and control over the certification of laboratories. This oversight would be based on internationally agreed upon standards that would ensure that certification systems for laboratories were operating in a similar manner which would ensure the quality of their work across borders. This began as ISO/IEC Guide 25 and by 1999 the guide was made into a standard which was published under ISO/IEC 17025:1999. This new standard, though based on much of the ISO/IEC 9000 management system standards, went farther by adding a focus on the competence of accredited testing and calibration laboratories. Once this was in place the American Society for Quality (ASQ) began a partnership with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) that would go on to create the Ansi/ASQ National Accreditation Board which evaluates “the quality of services offered by [quality system] registrars”. This organization ensures that the registrar responsible for accreditation of a laboratory is doing so in compliance to the standards set forth which govern that responsibility. However, ANAB also acts as a registrar themselves, and in fact this is who 3D-Engineering Solutions utilizes to acquire and maintain our accreditation and yearly conformance audits.

It’s the focus on “competence” that should be of great interest to the purchaser of services from these labs. And it’s the official accreditation that should be looked for in order to ensure that competence has been verified and validated.

In order to achieve an accreditation, the laboratory must prove that it meets all of the requirements set forth by the registrar and ISO/IEC 17025.

Compliance

In simple terms, compliance means “meeting or in accordance with rules or standards“.

If you receive an inspection report from which states “compliant to…” then you need to look for these items, at a minimum in order to begin having any level of confidence in the competence of the laboratory.

• A statement showing where the inspection took place
• A record of the environmental variables which may affect the outcome of the measurements. Temperature range, humidity level and barometric pressure would be some examples. 
• The measurement device(s) used, along with the model, serial number, calibration date, and calibration certificate.

• The Expanded Uncertainty of Measurement for the device(s) used.
• Identification of person(s) authorizing the report.
• Identification of external suppliers used for inspection of any portion of the part.
• A clear and precise explanation of the measurement method used, detailed in such a manner that the inspection can be easily reproduced by any other accredited laboratory.

This is not an exhaustive list of all of the requirements for an accredited report, and the requirements that go into ensuring these items is certainty too much to detail here, but you can see that a laboratory which has gone through the trouble of becoming accredited will be able to prove their value through the fact that they are competent in their areas of expertise. So next time you receive an inspection report do yourself a favor and look for the above items. Chances are if these things are not present, then the individual or company who provided the measurement results are not actually in “compliance with…” the standard which governs a good quality testing or calibration laboratory.

Competence

Competence is “the ability to do something successfully or efficiently”. Keep in mind, competence can be an objective term without accreditation and/or compliance.

This blog was written by Matt Caskey, ASQ-CQE, Quality Manager for 3D-Engineering Solutions