ISO/IEC 17025 moves to final stage of revision

Calibration as well as testing and analysing a sample is the daily practice of more than 60 000 laboratories worldwide, but how can they reassure customers about the reliability of their results?

Over the years, ISO/IEC 17025, General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories, has become the international reference for testing and calibration laboratories wanting to demonstrate their capacity to deliver trusted results. The International Standard, published jointly by ISO and IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), contains a set of requirements enabling laboratories to improve their ability to produce consistently valid results.

See the main changes to the new version

However, the laboratory environment has changed dramatically since the standard was last published, leading to the decision to revise the standard and integrate significant changes. Steve Sidney, one of the Convenors of the working group revising the standard, explains: “The last version of ISO/IEC 17025 was published in 2005. Since then, market conditions have changed and we felt we could bring some improvements to the standard.”

Heribert Schorn, working group Convenor who also participates in IECEE (System of Conformity Assessment Schemes for Electrotechnical Equipment and Components), adds: “The revision was needed to cover all the technical changes, technical developments and developments in IT techniques that the industry has seen since the last version. Additionally, the standard takes into consideration the new version of ISO 9001.”