Year
1998
Abstract
The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (Public Law 104-113) directs federal agencies to rely more on conformity assessment bodies and voluntary standards, and to lessen dependence on in-house regulators. Laboratory accreditation is one of the activities performed by conformity assessment bodies. Accreditation results in increased government and customer confidence in the data produced by a laboratory and provides transportability of results to commercial and international organizations. Accreditation should also reduce or eliminate the need for multiple inspections. An effective accreditation program will require agreement on the use of an international standard such as ISO Guide 25 and performance testing of a laboratory’s capability to perform the accredited measurements by participation of the laboratory in a measurement evaluation program. New Brunswick Laboratory (NBL) has an established measurement evaluation program for safeguards measurements. The role of NBL in establishing an accreditation program will be discussed.