Featured Product
This Week in Quality Digest Live
Metrology Features
Harish Jose
Using OC curves to generate reliability/confidence values
Scott Knoche
Choosing the best, most appropriate add-ons makes your work faster and easier
Adam Zewe
Key component for portable mass spectrometers
Peter Büscher
Identify contaminated areas and take steps to optimize them
Silke von Gemmingen
New approach investigates damage due to environmental fluctuation on textile artifacts

More Features

Metrology News
Improving quality control of PCBAs and optimizing X-ray inspection
10-year technology partnership includes sponsorship of quality control lab
MM series features improved functionality and usability
Features improved accuracy, resolution, versatility, and efficiency
Versatile CT solution for a range of 3D metrology, research, and evaluation applications
Adding its new SV series to NASCAR’s all-time leader in wins
Precise, high-speed inspection system makes automotive component production go faster
Upgrade to Mitutoyo’s latest CMM, vision, or form-measuring equipment

More News

Quality Digest

Metrology

New Edition of ISO/IEC 17025 Published

Published: Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - 22:00

The International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission recently published a new version of ISO/IEC 17025, the influential standard for testing and calibration laboratories. ISO/IEC 17025:2005 was released, among other reasons, to ensure compatibility with ISO 9001, a requirement made in an amendment to ISO/IEC 17025:1999. The new version also seeks to clarify that while the two standards are compatible, they aren’t interchangeable. Although both standards can be used by laboratories as a framework for providing customers with confidence that they’re properly managing their activities, only ISO/IEC 17025 can be used to demonstrate technical competence specific to laboratories.

ISO/IEC 17025:2005 contains all of the requirements that testing and calibration laboratories must meet to demonstrate to customers and regulators that they operate a sound management system and can generate technically valid results. Accreditation bodies that recognize testing and calibration laboratories will use the standard as the basis for accreditation.

“ISO/IEC 17025 benefits business, government and society at large,” says Alan Bryden, ISO secretary-general. “Confidence in the competence of laboratories is frequently needed by businesses when testing new products, or ensuring that finished products are for sale by government regulators and trade officials that require assurance about domestic or imported products before they can be placed on the market, or for ensuring the quality or reliability of testing and analysis relating to environmental, health or safety hazards.”

There are no essential changes in the technical requirements of ISO/IEC 17025:2005. The modifications mainly relate to the management requirements reflecting the content of ISO 9001, giving in particular a greater emphasis on the responsibilities of top management, the need to demonstrate continuous improvement in management systems and customer satisfaction, and on internal and customer communication about the management system.

More than 25,000 laboratories worldwide have been accredited to ISO/IEC 17025, according to ISO. The influence of the standard is even more significant, because many countries require its use. The International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation has set a transition period of two years from the date of ISO/IEC 17025:2005’s publication—May 12—for accredited laboratories to comply with its requirements.

For more information, visit www.iso.org.

Discuss

About The Author

Quality Digest’s picture

Quality Digest

For 40 years Quality Digest has been the go-to source for all things quality. Our newsletter, Quality Digest, shares expert commentary and relevant industry resources to assist our readers in their quest for continuous improvement. Our website includes every column and article from the newsletter since May 2009 as well as back issues of Quality Digest magazine to August 1995. We are committed to promoting a view wherein quality is not a niche, but an integral part of every phase of manufacturing and services.