Accreditation is the process by which an authoritative body gives formal recognition that a body or person is competent to carry out specific tasks.
Within a quality infrastructure system, the body made responsible for accreditation will evaluate the competence of product, management system and personnel certification bodies, testing laboratories and inspection bodies. Its official approval – known as “accreditation” - will indicate to customers and users of the services of these organizations that they can have confidence in their work.
Accreditation is often the responsibility of a National Accreditation Body (NAB) that may seek recognition of its accreditations within the frameworks of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and International Laboratory Accreditation Forum (ILAC).
IAF and ILAC promote and manage “mutual” or “multilateral” recognition “agreements” or “arrangements” (MRA) whereby the parties involved agree to recognize the results of each other’s testing, inspection, certification or accreditation. MRAs can be an important step towards reducing the multiple assessments that products, services, systems, processes and materials may need to undergo, especially when they are traded across borders. Since MRAs 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.
