Why ISO/IEC 17025 is essential?

ISO/IEC 17025 is an international standard for evaluating the competence of calibration laboratories. It includes portions of the ISO 9001 standards relating to organization and management plus it encompasses the entire calibration system to produce metrics for the:

• Calibration rig components,
• Administrative systems for process operations,
• Personnel proficiency,
• Documentation supporting the traceability
• Total measurement uncertainty for the entire calibration facility

By it’s stringent procedures, ISO/IEC 17025 ensures that the entire calibration process is traceable to the International System of Units (SI), personnel are technically competent and methods and practices in place produce precise and valid results.

Unlike other claims of traceability like NIST Traceable*, ISO/IEC 17025 involves a rigorous third party assessment to make sure that all of the requirements identified in the standard are met and periodic reviews are used to determine if the standards are maintained.

Furthermore, the ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation procedure evaluates the total measurement uncertainty (accuracy and repeatability) of each component on the calibration rig and is a mean of comparing ISO/IEC17025 accredited rigs to each other. Additional inter-laboratory proficiency testing is used to provide individual laboratory confidence

* Unfortunately, NIST does not govern calibration facility claims of traceability. The responsibility of NIST-traceable claims resides with the individual laboratory