Category Archives: Conformity assessment

Demonstration that specified requirements relating to a product, process, system, person or body are fulfilled; typically conducted through quality assessment services such as inspection, testing and certification.

Building the House of Accreditation

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Youngest Quality Infrastructure institution 

Accreditation is the youngest type of institution of the Quality Infrastructure system.  Accreditation refers to “…to the independent evaluation of conformity assessment bodies against recognised standards to carry out specific activities to ensure their impartiality and competence. Through the application of national and international standards, government, procurers and consumers can have confidence in the calibration and test results, inspection reports and certifications provided.” [1]

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The National Quality Law of Costa Rica

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Quality Infrastructure fulfils sovereign tasks 

The Quality Infrastructure is organised at the national level. Therefore, we speak of a National Quality System (NQS) or National Quality Infrastructure (NQI). Most countries in the world today have a National Metrology Institute (NMI), a National Standards Institute (NSI) and a National Accreditation Body (NAB). Each of these institutions requires a legal framework because they act in the public interest. In some cases, the Quality Infrastructure institutions even assume sovereign tasks.

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Addressing demand-side issues in Quality Infrastructure

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During recent scoping missions for preparing Quality Infrastructure related projects in Pakistan and Vietnam, we have been asked not primarily to look at the current and potential future supply side of Quality Infrastructure services but elaborate more on the demand side. Colleagues and partners were interested to learn about the importance of the demand for Quality Infrastructure services and, in fact, understand what exactly we mean by Quality Infrastructure demand and how it can boost the quality of products and services.

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One system, two functions

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In the first post of this blog, we explained the term Quality Infrastructure. We referred to the definition by INetQI, which is agreed upon by the international associations for accreditation, metrology, standardisation and supporting international organisations. INetQI defined Quality Infrastructure as follows:

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