ACCREDITED ISO 17025

Accreditation is the unbiased assessment by a third party of the laboratory's quality program and technical capabilities. The third party assesses the laboratory against a recognized standard. In December 1999, the new standard, ISO/IEC 17025, "General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratory's was adopted and has now replaced ISO Guide 25 as the accepted standard for accredited test and measurement laboratories. 

Accreditation indicates that a laboratory has demonstrated that it functions within the parameters of the standard. While accreditation is not a guarantee of a laboratory's performance, it does provide a means for determining the laboratory's competence to perform particular types of tests or calibrations. The technical evaluation during an accreditation includes a review (by experts in the relevant discipline) of calibration procedures, calibration standards, traceability, uncertainty analysis, actual results, and statistical process control.