Accred Qual Assur (2002) 7:234236 DOI 10.

1007/s00769-002-0466-y Springer-Verlag 2002

SHORT CONTRIBUTION

J. Forstn

Experience of implementing of ISO/IEC 17025: conclusions and recommendations of a workshop

Received: 28 February 2002 Accepted: 2 March 2002

J. Forstn VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, P.O. Box 1000, FIN-02044 VTT, Finland e-mail: jarl.forsten@vtt.fi

Abstract The first experiences of implementing of ISO/IEC 17025 have been obtained by the accreditation bodies and laboratories following the standard, and a workshop to discuss the experiences was arranged. This presentation gives the conclusions and recommendations from the workshop based on the lec-

tures and discussions. In general, the adoption of ISO/IEC 17025 has been a smooth process. Keywords ISO/IEC 17025 Implementation experience

Introduction
EA, Eurachem and EUROLAB had jointly decided to arrange a workshop on the experience gained from the first implementations of the new standard ISO/IEC 17025. The technical programme for the workshop was drawn up by the Permanent Liaison Group (PLG), which consists of representatives from the three organisations. Laboratoire National dEssais (LNE) organised this event in co-operation with COFRAC on 4th October 2001 in Paris. The workshop was very well attended, with about 300 participants from 26 countries. The large audience indicates that the workshop addressed a very important topic, and the timing was appropriate since both the accreditors and the laboratories had their first experience of implementing the standard. The proceedings containing all the lectures have been compiled and are available through LNE and the secretariats of EA, Eurachem and EUROLAB. In the following, the highlights as well as the conclusions and recommendations from the workshop are summarised.

plementation of ISO/IEC 17025. EUROLAB separately performed a small limited inquiry, which also confirmed this statement. In addition, the guidance given by ILAC on implementing the standard was considered appropriate. On the national level, there has been some debate on whether the accreditation bodies have added some new requirements or not. A matter of concern is the request for more detailed explanations/requirements on specific subjects as reported by the speakers and from the audience. The PLG has a very restrictive view on further detailing the requirements in that this will very probably result in losing the flexibility built into the present standard. Nor is the PLG in favour of detailing the contents of policies, procedures and routines. The accreditation bodies in the United Kingdom and France have collected the answers to the most commonly asked questions in relation to the implementation of the standard. The proposal is that EA should collect them and compile a joint document to help European organisations to find a harmonised interpretation.

Development of ISO/IEC 17025 and accreditation No real problems when introducing ISO/IEC 17025
Both the laboratories and the accreditors reported that there had not been any significant problems with the imThe ISO/IEC 17025 must be aligned with ISO 9001 (2000). Several items (for example computerised systems, management reviews, purchasing, records/archives, ac-