• General Information
  
• Inspection Companies
  

• General Information:

Accreditation is the procedure by which an authoritative body gives formal recognition that a body or person is competent to carry out specific tasks. In the ISO 9000 or ISO 14000 context, it relates to the work of the accreditation bodies that have been set up in a number of countries to evaluate the competence of certification bodies. An accreditation body will accredit – approve – a conformity assessment body as competent to carry out ISO 9000 or ISO 14000 certification in specific business sectors.

Accreditation is also carried out of testing laboratories, inspection bodies and product certification bodies. In some countries, accreditation is a legal requirement for conformity assessment bodies. Even in countries where this is not the case, when there are several conformity assessment bodies in a geographical area or business sector, some may want to distinguish themselves from their competitors by having an impartial evaluation of their competence by an accreditation body based on internationally recognized criteria.

• The  Role of certification

Certification is an asset and an advantage, both for the producer and for the purchaser, consumer or distributor. It gives an incontestable added value to the product or service bearing its mark.

For the manufacturer or service provider, it valorizes the goods or service, it opens up markets and simplifies relations.

For the user, it provides assurance that the product purchased meets defined characteristics or that an organization's process meets specified requirements. Certain product certification marks may represent an assurance of safety and quality. Certification enables one to distinguish apparently identical products or services; it offers to everyone a possibility of appeal in the event of dissatisfaction.

•   Mutual recognition agreements (MRA's)

The primary objective of conformity assessment is to give its users confidence that requirements applicable to products, services, systems, processes and materials have been met. One of the reasons why internationally traded goods and services are subject to repeated conformity assessment controls is a lack of confidence by users of conformity assessment in one country regarding the competence of bodies carrying out conformity assessment activities in other countries. Therefore, measures are needed to increase the confidence of both private and public sector purchasers, and of regulators, in the work of conformity assessment bodies and accreditation bodies – particularly those in other countries.

Such confidence can be achieved through cross-border cooperation among conformity assessment bodies and also among accreditation bodies. This cooperation is formalized in what are known as mutual recognition agreements (MRA's) whereby the parties involved agree to recognize the results of each other's testing, inspection, certification or accreditation. MRA's can be an important step towards reducing the multiple conformity assessment that products, services, systems, processes and materials may need to undergo, especially when they are traded across borders. Since MRA's facilitate the acceptance of goods and services everywhere on the basis of a single assessment in one country, they contribute to the efficiency of the international trading system to the benefit of suppliers and customers alike.