Accreditation of Laboratory Testing

INAB offers testing laboratories accreditation to the international standard EN ISO/IEC 17025:2017 “General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories”. This standard contains requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories and is used by laboratories in developing a management system for quality, administrative and technical operations.

 The standard is applicable to all laboratories regardless of the number of personnel or the extent of the scope of testing activities.

 ISO 17025 requires laboratories to establish and maintain a quality system to manage aspects such as document control, complaint handling, contract review, purchasing, audits and investigation into non-conforming testing/calibrations. In addition, the laboratory is required to have policies and procedures to describe training, test/calibration methods, quality assurance, reporting and measurement traceability.

 Testing laboratories may also apply for a flexible scope of accreditation, where, under certain conditions, additional tests may be reported as accredited, without involving the extension to scope process. The laboratory shall apply for assessment and award of a flexible scope as outlined in INAB policy PS11.

It is INAB policy to assess and award accreditation to provide opinions and interpretations to testing laboratories. The details on this policy are set out in INAB policy PS28.

INAB Accreditation Symbol

The Irish National Accreditation Board strongly mandates accredited organisations to use the accreditation symbol on their reports or certificates.

The accreditation symbol, ownership of which is vested in INAB, is a combination of the Board’s logo in association with the registration number and the accreditation standard. Reference is also made to the organisation’s scope of accreditation.

The use of the symbol is subject to strict criteria laid down in the INAB R1 Regulations.