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Accreditation Education Research & Scientific Services Center Pvt. Ltd. (AERSSC), is now an Associate member of ILAC.
AERSSC originally joined ILAC as an Affiliate Member in 2012 and we are now pleased to welcome AERSSC as an Associate member of ILAC.
ISO/CASCO has published a new brochure describing how “ISO Technical Committees (ISO/TCs) are often required to choose between developing requirements for a management system for an organisation’s activities, or developing requirements for the competence of an organisation to carry out its activities”.
Not only does this document assist ISO/TCs in understanding the difference between the two standards, but it is also helpful for organisations in the process of deciding whether to implement a management system or a competency based system. In addition, the brochure indicates the benefits and values of meeting either set of requirements.
The ISO/CASCO document – Frequency Asked Questions: Competency or Management System Based Standards?” is available here.
The African Union Conference of Ministers of Trade held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from the 1st – 5th December 2014, called upon the Pan African Quality Institutions (PAQI) to adopt the year 2017 as the African Year of Quality Infrastructure. The decision was made in recognition of the efforts that Africa has made towards improving its quality infrastructure and to cultivate a culture of collective responsibility in building a sound quality infrastructure amongst African countries.
More information regarding the African Year of Quality Infrastructure is available here.
ILAC supported the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) and its Committee on Conformity Assessment (CASCO), to organised and host a seminar to explore the role and benefits of standards and accreditation in managing risk for the insurance industry. The workshop brought together experts from conformity assessment and the insurance industry, standards developers and business representatives to discuss ideas such as extreme events and business continuity planning; reducing exposure to product liability claims; the challenges of globalized supply chains, and how technology will affect the sector.
The session, which was moderated by Anthony Hilton, Evening Standard Finance Correspondent, included speakers from INAIL, Zurich, Mitsubishi Corporation, Liberty Global, Pyrology Limited and WADA. Matt Baker, Howden Insurance Brokers, also provided an overview of the scheme that they have developed for UKAS accredited organisations, and how they use accreditation against ISO standards to evaluate risk. Michael Mainelli, UKAS non-executive, also delivered a presentation that brought out the key points from research carried out by the Z/Yen Group ‘Opportunities for Standards in Insurance’ which showed that the adoption of voluntary standards and accreditation would be particularly suitable around product development, product information and processes in insurance.
Many of the speakers from the sector cited the benefits that they receive having adopted international standards covered by accreditation. Mr Ono Takahiro, from the Mitsubishi Corporation Insurance, stated that the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) provide more attractive loan rate and discounted insurance premiums to commercial businesses that have accredited certification of their business continuity management system to ISO 22301 / 22313. This has helped the bank to manage its risk exposure as it has encouraged firms to build resilience and to be in better control of their risks. Matt Baker, Howden Insurance Brokers, shared their experience of setting up a scheme for UKAS-accredited organisations, where there are robust standards in pace, there is a clear process of demonstrating compliance to those standards, and there are consequences of non-compliance. This has allowed them to work with an engaged insurer to offer discounts on premium and better policy coverage. Analysis of the claims record demonstrates that standards and accreditation reduce the number of claims and therefore reduce insurer losses.
Antonio Terracina, Director of the Italian Workers’ Compensation Authority, the National Governmental Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL), reported how OHSAS 18001 had improved health and safety in the work place. INAIL provides significant discounts in premium to organisations that have accredited certification to OHSAS 18001, which has seen the number of certified organisations rise to 4,500. However, the number of accidents in the workplace has fallen significantly by 27% across the economy. Some sectors have seen significant reductions namely Construction (33%), Rock and Glass (43%) and Textiles (64%).
A short video summary of the workshop can be seen on the ISO Facebook Live page.
The presentations can also be viewed here.
ISO and the accreditation community will continue to work together with the insurance sector to ensure that these benefits have a wider reach, and to ensure that the standards development process can better support how insurers manage risk.
The photographs taken at the IAF-ILAC Joint Annual Meetings 2016, held in New Delhi, India, are now available to view and download here.
ILAC would like to extend our thanks to our colleagues at NABCB and NABL for their excellent arrangements for the meetings and cultural experiences, as well as all those who actively participated.
National Centre of Accreditation of the Republic of Moldova (MOLDAC), is now an Associate member of ILAC.
MOLDAC originally joined ILAC as an Affiliate Member in 2001 and we are now pleased to welcome MOLDAC as an Associate member of ILAC.
The WADA-ILAC Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was initially signed on the 15th November 2007 at the World Conference on Doping in Sport, held in Madrid, Spain.
The purpose of the ILAC-WADA partnership is to formally recognize the technical competence of anti-doping laboratories. This then improves the international community’s confidence in the fight against doping in sport.
The WADA-ILAC MoU was resigned on 2 November 2016 by the WADA Senior Director, Science and the ILAC Chair at the ILAC General Assembly in New Delhi, India.
A copy of the WADA-ILAC MoU is available here.
We welcome National Accreditation Authority (NAH), Hungary, as a Full Member of ILAC.
NAH joined ILAC as an Associate Member on 9 November 2016 and has become a signatory to the ILAC MRA for the accreditation of calibration and testing laboratories using ISO/IEC 17025 and medical testing laboratories using ISO 15189, via the EA MLA.
We welcome NAH as a Full Member and look forward to working with our NAH colleagues.
The full list of signatories to the ILAC MRA is available here.
ILAC and IAF, the global accreditation associations, have contributed to research conducted by OECD to analyse the impact of international organisations (IOs) in supporting regulatory co-operation. The research identified that International Organisations (IOs) play a growing role as standard setting bodies in supporting regulatory co-operation with evidence showing that IOs contribute to International Regulatory Cooperation (IRC) by:
The OECD gathered unique evidence from 50 international organisations on their governance, operational modalities, rule-making practices and approaches to assessing implementation and impacts, which is presented in the report “International Regulatory Co-operation: The Role of International Organisations in Fostering Better Rules of Globalization”, published 2 November 2016. This comparative analysis takes into account the diversity of mandates, expertise and strengths of the 50 participating IOs.
By establishing the international accreditation arrangements based on the mutual recognition of certificates and reports issued by conformity assessment bodies, the development 0f common rules and policies, and the harmonizing of accreditation practices, the report identified that ILAC and IAF play a growing role in supporting regulatory co-operation.
This OECD work on IRC and IOs is part of a broad study into the various mechanisms available to governments to promote regulatory co-operation, and their benefits and challenges.
A full copy of the report is available here.