It still amazes me that many companies do not understand the difference between the terms accreditation and certification.
We still see many businesses claiming in the press or on their websites that they have been `accredited' to ISO 9001:2000, the latest international QMS (quality measurement system) standard. Nothing could be further from the truth and in fact in terms of their quality management system they have been certified or registered, the latter being the terminology often used in North America. I thought it would be worthwhile to present the facts surrounding accreditation and certification and to clear up other misperceptions that local companies may have. In terms of South Africa we have only one accreditation body recognised by government through the DTI and that is the South African National Accreditation System or SANAS. SANAS accredits a range of organisations including certification bodies, calibration, testing and medical laboratories, inspection bodies, and product certification bodies.
Certification
There are quite a number of certification bodies operating in South Africa and the choice of which to use is in fact that of the individual company. Some certification bodies tend to specialise in certain disciplines (such as Dekra for the electronics industry) while others tend to be more wide ranging. Remember it is the documented quality management system that is being evaluated and the same principles apply whether you are in the process industry, mining or banking. One example of a truly South African certification body is the SABS. While accredited by SANAS the SABS has decided to retain its historical accreditation by the RvA (Netherlands).
There is often a belief that to get international recognition for your ISO certification that you should make use of a certification body operating out of a developed country such as the major European nations. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is an organisation called the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) of which SANAS was a founder member. The accreditation bodies of the many countries that belong to the IAF have undertaken to recognise accreditations by sister national bodies and hence certificates of competence to the ISO 9001:2000 standard. All national accreditation bodies such as SANAS are subject to regular peer reviews to ensure that they still operate within and comply with internationally accepted accreditation norms. Note also that several international certification bodies, including SGS and TÜV have decided to also be accredited by SANAS. SANAS also operates within the SADC region and has for example accredited the Standards Association of Zimbabwe.
While many companies view ISO accreditation as the panacea to all their problems, beware! A quality management system does not ensure that you produce the perfect product. If your documentation is such that the product produced is defective then ISO 9000 will only ensure that you will produce the same defective product consistently.
In summary, certification is the procedure by which a third party (the certification body) gives assurance that a product; process or service conforms to specified requirements. SANAS and other accreditation bodies use ISO Guide 62 to accredit certification bodies. These third party bodies then carry out certification of organisations as complying with the requirements of ISO 9000 or other international standards such as ISO 14000 and HACCP. Certification first involves assessment and this is followed up at regular intervals with continued surveillance. SANAS and other accreditation bodies are subject to regular peer reviews to ensure that they continue to meet the internationally defined standards.
Accreditation
Laboratory accreditation is a much more complex process than certification to a quality management system. A laboratory is supposed to produce accurate data from unknown samples. You would want to ensure that the blood sample drawn by your doctor for diagnostic purposes would be correctly and accurately tested. You also want to ensure that your grocery store delivers the correct mass of product, that you are getting the correct volume of your favourite alcoholic beverage and that you receive the correct number of litres of fuel when you fill up at your local service station.
In the process industry accurate measurements are required of many process parameters such as temperature, pressure, flow, level, etc, and the correct mass or volume of ingredients must be mixed. If such control is not possible then either the final product will be defective or efficiencies will be lowered.
Just as we have an international organisation regulating quality standards, in the case of laboratories this is the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and in terms of its recognition of South Africa as a major role player it should be noted that Mike Peet, the CEO of SANAS, has just completed two back-to-back terms as chairman of ILAC. This organisation has in place the ILAC Arrangement and full signatories of this (which includes South Africa through SANAS) undertake to recognise each other's calibration certificates and test reports from accredited laboratories. ILAC currently has some 46 full members (which includes all the world's leading economies), 16 associate members and 20 affiliate members, the last two groups striving for full recognition. ILAC also works in close collaboration with the IAF.
Laboratory accreditation is carried out directly by SANAS (or other accreditation bodies) to the requirements of ISO/IEC 17025. Note that unlike the proliferation of certification organisations SANAS is the only accreditation body recognised by the South African Government, and is currently the only signatory in southern Africa to the ILAC Agreement, which makes its accreditations acceptable to the international community.
There are two types of accredited laboratories that are relevant to the instrumentation and control industry and these are calibration and testing laboratories. Unlike ISO 9000 certification, laboratory accreditation has a number of significant additional elements. These include:
* Technical competence of personnel.
* Suitability of test or calibration methods.
* Suitability of available resources.
* Demonstrated adherence to specified test or calibration methods.
* Participation in proficiency testing (test laboratories) or audit sample programmes (calibration laboratories).
Looking at the two types of accredited laboratories ...
Calibration laboratories
Calibration laboratories are used to calibrate measurement instrumentation. The scope of the many laboratories in South Africa covers many fields, these including such measurement parameters as force, pressure, electrical (AC and DC), mass, dimensional, RF, temperature etc. Most laboratories focus on one or a few key areas and their scope can be found at the SANAS web site www.sanas.co.za. Note that the accuracy and uncertainty of measurement varies between laboratories and a company must ensure that the laboratory selected can calibrate to the required precision. It also should be remembered that one of the conditions of ISO 9000 certification is that a company must calibrate its measurement equipment at regular intervals, this being dependent on the amount of use and/or abuse that the equipment is subjected to. In order to ensure that calibration laboratories continue to measure within their defined uncertainty the NML (see below) regularly circulates calibrated artefacts (eg, resistors, weights, etc) or audit samples and the results obtained from the laboratories is independently assessed and reported back to SANAS.
One might ask how we ensure that a measurement of a parameter made in South Africa by an accredited laboratory is the same (within the limitations of uncertainty) as that performed in New York or Mexico. International standards of measurement (from the metre to the kilogram) are maintained by the BIPM in Paris and South Africa is a member of the BIPM through the CSIR's National Measurement Laboratory (NML). South Africa's national standards are maintained by the NML and there are regular comparisons carried out between the NML, the BIPM and other national measurement laboratories. While many standards used to be based on artefacts, today's measurements are based on the measurement of physical constants, the only exception to this being the kilogram, which is based on a number of standard kilograms residing at the BIPM. The NML possesses an exact copy of this, which is maintained in a carefully controlled environment and at irregular intervals this is also crosschecked against the BIPM and the other standard kilograms located throughout the world. This interaction between national laboratories and the BIPM ensures international traceability of measurement.
Testing laboratories
Testing laboratories as the name implies test substances, and range in scope from chemical analysis, civil engineering, concrete testing, microbiological, water and waste water, textiles etc. They are obviously critical to all industries that produce food and beverages, chemicals and petrochemicals and even coal. They are also essential to the country's water boards and for industries that produce liquid and other effluents. As these laboratories do not measure defined physical parameters the method used for ensuring their continued compliance is proficiency testing. Here a sample of, for example, contaminated water would be circulated to the relevant laboratories and they would have to perform a detailed chemical analysis.
Note that internationally test and calibration reports are only recognised if the laboratory concerned is accredited to ISO/IEC 17025. Having an ISO 9000 certificate for a company and in-house laboratory is not enough, as the true technical ability of that laboratory has not been assessed. Many companies unfortunately believe that only ISO 9000 (or its equivalents such as QS 9000 for the automotive industry) is enough.
While as indicated there are a number of certification bodies that operate within South Africa, SANAS is the only accreditation body and it would only be in exceptional circumstances that a laboratory would consider overseas accreditation, mainly because of the cost involved.
Conclusion
In summary, when a company is certified to ISO 9001:2000 (the latest version of the QMS standard), all certification bodies from countries affiliated to the IAF are equal and there is no real benefit in thinking that an overseas organisation will add value to the status of your company. ISO 9001:2000 does not cover test reports issued by a laboratory and for international recognition the laboratory must be accredited by an accreditation body such as SANAS which is a signatory to the ILAC Arrangement. At this point in time SANAS is the only recognised accreditation body on this continent, although both Egypt and Mauritius are striving to attain recognition.
Dr Maurice McDowell has many years' experience as a technical journalist, editor, business manager and research scientist. His third party analyses of world-class companies and processes, as well as his insight into industry and technology trends are well respected.
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