Accreditation

What Is Accreditation?

Accreditation is a formal, independent verification that a program or institution meets established quality standards and is competent to carry out specific conformity assessment tasks.

Organizations responsible for public safety and welfare such as building departments, hospitals, schools, and police and fire departments also seek accreditation to demonstrate their competence and reliability.

Accreditation has been used for over 50 years as the definitive means of evaluating organizations and is now utilized by all the world’s major economies and many developing economies.

 

Who can be Accredited

The International Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies (IAB-CB) provides accreditation for Conformity Assessment Body (CAB).  A Conformity Assessment Body (CAB) could be accredited by IAB-CB if it meets the requirements of the corresponding international standard.

 

Benefit of Accreditation

  1. A benefit of accreditation is that your laboratory or organization will gain international Benefits for its commitment to quality, competency and reliable results.
  2. In addition, accreditation will signify that you comply with an internationally recognized standard, thus easing the global exchange of valuable information.
  3. Accreditation is an objective way to assure your customers that you have demonstrated technical competence to provide reliable and accurate results.
  4. Any company/ laboratory achieving accreditation to International Standards, is presented with a certificate of accreditation. This certificate can be used in advertising, promotional literature and stationary to show current and potential customers that your laboratory/organization is committed to quality and has demonstrated technical competency to perform services.
  5. Accreditation will set your laboratory/organization apart from your competitors. International Standards are an ideal management system model for laboratories/organizations because it aims to control quality costs, improve measurement accuracy and guarantee consistency of results.
  6. Accreditation is objective because an independent, third party accreditation body performs annual assessments to verify whether your system is meeting all of the requirements of an International Standard. This independent evaluation is important to the customer, because it is an unbiased guarantee that your laboratory/organization is performing at its highest level.
  7. Accreditation is customer-driven especially when implemented correctly. The elements of International Standards work meticulously together to ensure that required quality levels are met and that customers’ needs are satisfied. This can be a powerful strategic tool.
  8. In view of the above, accreditation to International Standards can be a valuable tool. By becoming accredited, you can look forward to an efficient management system, improved services, fewer customer complaints and a strong competitive edge.

 

Accreditation Programs

The IAB-CB accreditation process provides objective evidence that an organization operates at a high level of organizational, legal and technical standards.

IAB-CB bases its programs on internationally recognized standards in order to ensure worldwide acceptance of your accreditation.

The accreditation criteria have been developed by IAB-CB to provide all interested parties with guidelines for implementing performance features of the applicable standards referenced in the accreditation criteria. The criteria were developed following public hearings conducted by the IAB-CB Accreditation Committee.

 

IAB-CB Procedures