ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER

Contents

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EUROLAB: internal issues
 - National Members Meeting 28 October 2003, Vienna
 - Workshop: Product Certification - how can it really work at the international level?
Review of the New Approach
Accreditation: Topical discussions
 - EA and ILAC documents
 - Reference to ISO 9001 on accreditation certificates
 - Certification against ISO/IEC 17025
 - Comparison of different inquiries on customer satisfaction with accreditation
 - EA General assembly 2003
Metrology
 - National metrology institutes and accreditation
 - 25th Anniversary of the Croatian Metrology Society
Networking: Solving technical problems
 - Recognition of measurement and test results
 - Measurement uncertainty from sampling
 - International Advisory Group on Reference Materials (IAGRM)
News from Standardisation: ISO CASCO
Co-operation: Call for Experts
Important dates

 
 EUROLAB
 NEWSLETTER
 DECEMBER 2003  

National Members Meeting 28 October 2003, Vienna

The charming city of Vienna was the venue for this year's EUROLAB National Members' meeting on 28 October. The main topics were EUROLAB's development in the future and its international orientation. In this respect EUROLAB had been represented at important international events, e.g. at the IMEKO and NCSLI world conferences in Croatia and the US and at the NLA conference in South Africa.

A focus of the meeting was on the well-received presentations of conformity assessment organisations from Romania and Croatia, which have applied for membership in EUROLAB. In such countries where several laboratory organisations exist, these were encouraged to cooperate, as the EUROLAB statutes allow only one association per country to become member. Under the topic of accreditation, the status of documents was discussed that are rated "mandatory" for accreditation bodies within their mutual recognition agreement (MLA). There was broad consensus that such documents by accreditation bodies must not be mandatory for the laboratories, because they have not the status of standards (see below).

Workshop: Product Certification - how can it really work at the international level ?

The EUROLAB and CEOC Joint Technical Committee on Product Testing and Certification (JTC PTC) prepared the programme for this workshop on product testing and certification on 29 October 2003 in Vienna. The workshop was well-organised by Austrolab and included a pleasant visit of Schönbrunn Castle and a reception at its famous Gloriette pavilion.
The JTC PTC members had found it important to provide a forum for laboratories, certification bodies, industry and authorities to discuss current developments, because they had identified a lack of such exchanges. Hot topics were the review of the New Approach and the respective European Council resolution that was adopted by the Council only a few days after the workshop, CE marking and market surveillance. The feedback from industry was that certification bodies are expected to act more as partners of industry. The presentations and conclusions from the discussions are available at www.eurolab.org.

Review of the New Approach

In the EUROLAB Newsletter November 2003 we presented the position of EUROLAB's and CEOC's Joint Technical Committee on Product Testing and Certification (JTC PTC) on a communication of the European Commission on "Enhancing the Implementation of the New Approach Directives" (May 2003). The next stage has been reached now: on 10 November 2003 the EU Competitiveness Council approved a Resolution and welcomed the Commission's communication.

The Commission is invited to take initiatives in some fields of conformity assessment and market surveillance, e.g. concerning  

•	notified bodies and the authorities involved in their assessment, designation and surveillance,
•	market surveillance and CE marking.

EA and ILAC documents

According to a decision of the EA General Assembly, all EA (European co-operation for Accreditation) and ILAC (International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation) documents, which are approved by EA, should be classified into four categories:

Type 1:	Procedure documents for the EA Multilateral Agreement (MLA) that lay down the requirements for the operation of the EA MLA,
Type 2:	EA MLA support documents of a horizontal nature that support the application of the accreditation standards,
Type 3:	EA sector specific documents that support the implementation of the accreditation standards in specific sector applications,
Type 4:	Technical documents that provide technical or scientific guidance on the application of the accreditation standards.

While the documents of the first three categories are mandatory, the use of type 4 documents is recommended by EA.

EUROLAB is discussing this classification and its impact on accredited laboratories with EA at different levels. The aim is to avoid a binding character of all these documents for accredited organisations because this might interfere with their own ways to implement the conformity assessment standards (e.g. ISO/IEC 17025) according to their needs.

Reference to ISO 9001 on accreditation certificates

At present ISO/IEC 17025 explicitly states that a laboratory that complies with this international standard operates a quality system which is in compliance with ISO 9001:1994. After the alignment of ISO/IEC 17025 a similar statement will exist concerning ISO 9001:2000. EUROLAB is urgently trying to convince EA and its members that such a statement must be included in the accreditation certificate also in future because it is of major importance for the communication with the laboratories' clients.

Certification against ISO/IEC 17025

ISO/IEC 17025 on the competence of calibration and testing laboratories is a standard primarily addressing laboratories. As it is stated in this international standard it can also be used by accreditation bodies to assess the laboratories' competence. But it is not intended to be used for certification purposes.

EA and ILAC are planning to refuse any accreditation of certification bodies that do offer certification of laboratories against ISO/IEC 17025. By this means accreditation bodies want to avoid any confusion of the market concerning the different roles of accreditation and certification.

Comparison of different inquiries on customer satisfaction with accreditation

Inquiries about the degree of satisfaction of customers with accreditation seem to be very popular currently. EUROLAB had started an inquiry on the satisfaction of laboratories with European accreditation bodies in 2001 based on a questionnaire drafted by the PLG (Permanent Liaison Group of EA, EUROLAB and Eurachem). After the results were published, EA carried out an inquiry with similar questions but differentiating between laboratories, inspection bodies and certification bodies in March/April 2003. A third inquiry was commissioned by IAF also in 2003, addressing certification bodies only.

The outcome of the three inquiries is very much in line. Among the four major deficiencies identified are the time factor of the accreditation process, acceptance through international markets, and no real improvement of the quality experienced by the laboratory. However, while the degree of dissatisfaction with the aspects mentioned was ca. 13% with the inquiry by EUROLAB, the other two inquiries revealed discontent of about 30%. Especially notification and certification bodies answer more negatively. A comparison and short overview of the results is given in the attached table.

EA General assembly 2003

EA, the European co-operation for Accreditation, held its General Assembly on 25-27 November 2003 in London. EUROLAB was represented by president Carlos Ganopa. Some important results are the following:
Elections:
confirmed were
- Daniel Pierre, Chairman
- Thomas Facklam, Vice Chairman
- Jos Leferink, MLA Committee
- Tom Dempsey, Publication, Promotion&Legal Affairs Committee
- Roger Brockway, Certification Committee
- Hanspeter Ischi, Laboratory Committee
newly elected was
- Merih Malmqvist, Inspection Committee

•	The document EA 4/16 "EA Guidelines on the Expression of Uncertainty in Quantitative Testing" was adopted and will be applied.
•	The revised version of EA-5/01Guidance on the Application of EN 45004 / ISO/IEC 17020, the standard for inspection bodies, was also adopted. There will be transition period for inspection and accreditation bodies of 1 year.
•	From 15 December 2003 accreditation bodies have agreed not to state compliance with ISO 9001 on accreditation certificates according to ISO/ICE 17025 anymore. After publication of the revision of ISO/IEC 17025 this topic will be re-addressed.

National metrology institutes and accreditation

In October 2003, the 22nd General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) adopted a resolution concerning the relationship between national metrology institutes (NMIs) and nationally recognised accreditation bodies (NABs) (http://www1.bipm.org/utils/en/pdf/Resol22CGPM-EN.pdf). The CGPM advocated a close link between NMIs and NABs and emphasised that NMIs and accredited calibration laboratories together provide an indispensable route to traceability to the International System of Units (SI). In addition it was noted that calibration should not be rated as a conformity assessment activity.

Without denying the necessity of technical expertise of the NABs to assess calibration laboratories, EUROLAB underlines its position which is laid down in its position paper 1/2003 on the role of NABs (www.eurolab.org). A prerequisite for the acceptance of accreditation as a service of general economic interest is the independence and impartiality of the NABs. The impartiality would be questioned if the NABs offered any service, e.g. calibration, that is provided by its accredited organisations.

25th Anniversary of the Croatian Metrology Society

On 9 December 2003 the Croatian Metrology Society (HMD) celebrated its 25th anniversary with a workshop at the University of Zagreb. Manfred Golze, the EUROLAB Secretary, was invited and congratulated HMD on behalf of EUROLAB and gave a short presentation of some recent and future activities of EUROLAB.

Recognition of measurement and test results

The EUROLAB Technical Secretariat is increasingly being approached by conformity assessment organisations that are faced with the non acceptance of their reports or certificates in other European countries. These examples demonstrate the still existing limits of the multilateral agreements (MLAs) between the accreditation bodies.

We invite all EUROLAB members with similar experiences to inform the EUROLAB Secretariat (eurolab@bam.de) about their problems. Even if it is not possible to solve each individual case, the discussion of the problems with EA and the national accreditation bodies might help to improve the situation in general. EUROLAB guarantees confidentiality, if requested.

Measurement uncertainty from sampling

As a follow-up to the EUROLAB / EURACHEM Workshop on Traceability and Measurement Uncertainty in Testing both organisations decided to establish a joint working group on measurement uncertainty from sampling. Recently NORDTEST agreed to co-operate in this group, too.

The estimation of the sampling contribution to measurement uncertainty is often one of the most difficult issues in the evaluation of measurement uncertainty. Therefore it is important to tackle this problem. Any members of the EUROLAB community who are interested in attending this group should contact their national EUROLAB organisation.

International Advisory Group on Reference Materials (IAGRM)

The international advisory group on reference materials met for the first time in Bratislava on 23 September 2003, where the work programme and terms of reference were agreed. Also, it was possible to agree on the contents of a paper on third party quality assessment of RMs. The European RM group (EA, EUROLAB, Eurachem, Euromet) had drafted a paper on third party quality assessment of RMs, which however was not approved by EA and EUROLAB. In the new paper only ISO/IEC 17025 plus ISO Guide 34 will be given as preferred option for accreditation of RM providers. It will be stated as a footnote, that in some specific cases also certification may apply.

IAGRM will also discuss how to treat quality assessment of RMs provided by NMIs. A guidance paper on in-house RMs will be produced in cooperation with ISO REMCO WG 8. Furthermore guidance on meeting the traceability requirements of ISO/IEC 17025 in the field of chemical analysis will be discussed. The dates of the next meetings have not yet been appointed, but it is likely that the next meeting will be arranged in February or March 2004.

ISO CASCO

The 19th General Assembly of the ISO Committee on Conformity Assessment (ISO CASCO) was held on 6 and 7 November 2003. Among others CASCO endorsed a policy on development of sector-specific conformity assessment provisions and a so-called CASCO 2010 Road Map, which defines the mid-term planning for the conformity assessment standards.

In 2003 two international standards were published, i.e.

•	ISO/IEC 17030 "Conformity assessment - General requirements for third-partymarks of conformity",
•	ISO/IEC 17024 "Conformity assessment - General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons" (replaces EN 45013).

Call for Experts

This rubric will be a part of our Newsletter in the future if there is a need of technical experts in the frame of international projects. Also in this respect EUROLAB would like to provide a forum for exchange of information.

CEN calls for short-time (max. 1 month) experts for the EC-ASEAN Economic Co-operation Program on Standards, Quality and Conformity Assessment Indonesia (Project No. ASIA/2003/069-236). This technical assistance project started officially on 1st October 2003 and will last up to the end of 2005. The experts will assist the team of Expatriates (the team leader and one Project Manager) e.g. by preparing sectoral and regional plans and conducting the assessment of quality infrastructures in several sectors, e.g. electronic equipment including electromagnetic compatibility, telecommunication equipment, food testing and labelling, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. For more information please contact your national EUROLAB Secretariat.

16 January 2004	4E (EURACHEM, EA, EUROMET, EUROLAB) Chairpersons' meeting in Dublin, Ireland
29 January 2004	Meeting of the EUROLAB Board of Administrators in Brussels
02 March 2004	EUROLAB TC QA (Technical Committee for Quality Assurance) in Borås, Sweden
18 March 2004	Meeting of the EUROLAB Board of Administrators in Lisbon
18/19 March 2004	General Assembly of EUROLAB in Lisbon
22 April 2004	EUROLAB/CEOC JTC PTC ( Joint Technical Committee for Product Testing and Certification) in Brussels
24/25 May 2004	Workshop on Teaching Quality and Metrology in Chemistry, Prague, in connection with the General Assembly of EURACHEM 24-29 May 2004
26/27 May 2004	EEE-PT (Joint EA-EUROLAB-EURACHEM Working Group on Proficiency Testing ) in Prague