Accreditation

Accreditation is the independent evaluation of conformity assessment bodies against recognised standards to ensure their impartiality and competence. Through the application of national and international standards, government, procurers and consumers can have confidence in the calibration and test results, inspection reports and certifications provided.

Accreditation bodies are established in many countries with the primary purpose of ensuring that conformity assessment bodies are subject to oversight by an authoritative body.

Accreditation bodies, which have been evaluated by peers as competent, sign arrangements that enhance the acceptance of products and services across national borders, thereby creating a framework to support international trade through the removal of technical barriers.

These arrangements are managed by the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), in the fields of management systems, products, services, personnel and other similar programmes of conformity assessment, and the ILAC in the field of laboratory and inspection accreditation. Both organisations, ILAC and IAF work together and coordinate their efforts to enhance the accreditation and the conformity assessment worldwide

The accreditations held by the ROS Group are all performed by Accreditation Bodies that are members of the IAF.

As such, certificates that are issued, that are accreditated via such bodies as UKAS, NABCB and DAC should be accepted in any country around the World due to the recognition of the IAF.

For more details of the signatories to the IAF and MLA (Multi-lateral Agreement), please visit the IAF website - see the Serach and Find area icon on this website.

Accreditation body members of the IAF are admitted to the IAF MLA only after a most stringent evaluation of their operations by a peer evaluation team.

The evaluation team's purpose is to ensure that the applicant member complies fully with both the international standards and IAF requirements.

Once an accreditation body is a signatory of the IAF MLA it is required to recognise the certificates issued by conformity assessment bodies accredited by all other signatories of the IAF MLA, with the appropriate scope.

As ROS holds UKAS, NABCB, DAC and other accreditations, you can be assured of their recognistion, as all are signatories to the MLA., To check the extent of the accreditations that ROS holds, please visit the websites of the Accreditation Bodies, such as UKAS, DAC, NABCB and IATF.

Currently there are over 60 member Accreditation Body countries that are signatories to the MLA, which includes ALL the major economies of the World.