CALA continues its restructuring plans to conform to ISO/IEC 17011:2017
The revised ISO/IEC 17011:2017 Conformity assessment – Requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies is the standard by which accreditation bodies (AB) like CALA must comply. This means significant changes for CALA as it works towards being evaluated against this standard in May 2020.
The impact of ISO/IEC 17011:2017 for CALA
The revised ISO/IEC 17011:2017 Conformity assessment - Requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies is the standard by which accreditation bodies (AB) like CALA must comply. The updated standard includes revisions to sections of the standard that address impartiality requirements. Specifically that an AB shall not offer or provide any service that affects its impartiality. Several activities are listed including the provision of proficiency testing. To comply with the revised standard CALA's proficiency testing activities need to be separated from its accreditation activities in a way that meets the requirements of the standard. CALA has three (3) years from the publication of the revised standard on November 30th 2017 to bring the organization into compliance and will be evaluated against the new version in May 2020.
If an AB is linked to a body offering proficiency testing then the organizations shall have different top management, different personnel performing the accreditation decision-making, distinctly different names, logos and symbols and mechanisms to prevent any influence on the outcome of any accreditation activity. The result of this is that CALA's proficiency testing and accreditation activities need to be in separate corporate entities with different management, different corporate names, logos and symbols, etc.
CALA is now working towards creating a separate corporate entity responsible for its current proficiency testing activities with a goal of having the new company operational by January 1st 2020.