June 9 has been designated by the International Accreditation Organizations ILAC and IAF as World Accreditation Day. This symbolic day gives the opportunity for a worldwide campaign to highlight the importance of accreditation as the highest level of reliability assessment of a laboratory’s quality infrastructure. The theme of World Accreditation Day 2020 is “Accreditation: Improving Food Safety”.

Since its establishment, Eurachem has supported accreditation activities. Eurachem’s key aims are to establish a system for the metrological traceability of analytical measurements and to promote best practice in quality assurance in analytical laboratories. It has a series of working groups of experts to address specific needs related to the above mentioned objectives and the accreditation of laboratories. The outcome of this work appears in guidance documents, which in some cases are prepared in cooperation with other regional and international organizations. Examples include the EEE documents on proficiency testing jointly prepared by Eurachem, EA and Eurolab, and a series of Eurachem/CITAC guides. The guide on the uncertainty arising from sampling was prepared in cooperation with other organisations. It is noteworthy that this guide was originally published ten years before ISO/IEC 17025:2017 introduced the requirement for this contribution to be taken into account as appropriate when evaluating measurement uncertainty. Other guides on critical aspects of accreditation refer to the fitness for purpose of analytical methods, the use of uncertainty information in compliance assessment, traceability in chemical measurement, quality in analytical laboratories, accreditation for microbiological laboratories, and terminology in analytical measurement.

Guides and leaflets, some of them translated into many languages, have been proved to be very useful for accredited laboratories and those preparing for accreditation. Many are cited in Accreditation Body reading lists, as non-mandatory guidance to help laboratories.¹ These publications are freely accessible via the website where further information, disseminated by other means of communication, is also available. Eurachem is actively involved in EA and ILAC Laboratory Committees and organises many training activities in cooperation with national Eurachem committees, thus supporting laboratories and increasing the awareness of all stakeholders.

Dr Kyriacos C. Tsimillis
9 June, 2020

World Accreditation Day 2020 resources and information

Further information on World Accreditation day 2020, and the role of Accreditation in supporting Food Safety, can be found on the ILAC website at https://ilac.org/news-and-events/world-accreditation-day-2020-2/

References

1. Bertil Magnusson, Stephen L.R. Ellison, Marina Patriarca, Accred Qual Assur (2014) 19:55–57. DOI 10.1007/s00769-014-1040-0 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00769-014-1041-z) or on this website.

Details

Published: Tuesday, 09 June 2020 09:00

• Accreditation

• Prev
• Next