CALA Formally Approved as Conforming to ISO/IEC 17011:2017 Standard

As of April 24, 2020, CALA is formally approved as conforming to ISO/IEC 17011:2017 standard, Conformity assessment – Requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies.  This is the standard by which accreditation bodies (AB) like CALA must conform.  Similar to the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard, ISO/IEC 17011 was also revised in November 2017 and since then CALA has been working diligently to perform a gap analysis between the new or changed requirements and CALA’s management system, updating processes where necessary, and implementing any new or changed processes.  Of course, one of the biggest changes was the divestment of the CALA Proficiency Testing Program and the creation of Proficiency Testing Canada Inc., in order to meet the impartiality requirements of the standard.  The last couple of months were particularly challenging because the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the postponement of an on-site visit to verify conformance. This meant that a demonstration of conformance had to be accomplished by submission of documents and records, and responding to questions in a timely manner.  In the end, the decision-making body of the Asia Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC) approved the report and documented transition.  As part of CALA’s on-going requirements as a signatory to APAC, the full on-site re-evaluation by an APAC evaluation team is tentatively scheduled for the autumn of 2020.

CALA is proud of this accomplishment after much hard work and efforts by all areas in our organization.