Contracts for Engineers

13

Accreditation

Introduction

The portability of conformity assessments, covered in Chapter 12, depends heavily on accreditation, itself a form of certification, at the next higher level. Accreditation and certification share many concepts, but the critical distinction lies at the level of the actions. Certification is performed by a conformity assessment body (CAB), while accreditation reflects a form of approval of the CAB (or another entity in some cases). At the accreditation level, attention is directed more to the management aspects of the object of accreditation, including personnel qualifications, than it is in the case of conformity assessment. Both accreditation and conformity assessment share some common concepts and are sometimes ...