“Accreditation is the process in which certification of competency, authority, or credibility is presented.”

Operating in the public interest across all market sectors, accreditation determines the technical competence, reliability and integrity of conformity assessment bodies. These are organizations that check conformity and compliance with standards and regulations through testing, verification, inspection and calibration. Accreditation works through a process of transparent and impartial evaluation of these organizations against internationally recognized standards and other requirements.

Accreditation is a quality infrastructure tool which supports the credibility and value of the work carried out by conformity assessment bodies and thus of the corresponding attestations issued by them (test and inspection reports, calibration certificates, certifications of management systems, products and personnel and other attestations).

Accreditation of conformity assessment bodies is carried out against globally accepted requirements set out in international standards defining competence criteria for the category of conformity assessment body, against supplementary sector specific requirements and against guidance documents from international and regional cooperation organizations of accreditation bodies.

A global acceptance of the services provided with an accreditation is also subject to some questions, as to establish a confidence for the quality of the accreditation service itself.

As part of the accreditation procedure, an independent accreditation body that they carry out their activities with technical competence, in compliance with statutory and standards-based requirements and at an internationally comparative standard. The accreditation body assesses and monitors the management system and the competence of the conformity assessment body’s assigned personnel.

The trusting mechanism between accreditation bodies is constructed on the multilateral agreements at the international and regional accreditation body organizations, like IAF (International Accreditation Forum), ILAC (International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation), EA (European Cooperation for Accreditation), Asia Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC) etc.

Therefore, accreditations play a key role in guaranteeing the comparability of conformity assessment results and creating trust in the quality and safety of products and services.