This month, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), signatory to the Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (PAC), hosted a two-day workshop in Gaithersburg, Maryland, with industry and government presentations on ISO/IEC 17065, Conformity assessment - Requirements for bodies certifying products, processes and services. Attendees included 21 international participants from PAC member accreditation bodies.
PAC is an association of accreditation bodies whose objective is the creation of a system granting international recognition of conformity assessment certifications. The ANSI event on October 6-7 provided a section-by-section breakdown of ISO/IEC 17065, and presentations were complemented with exercises that tested the specific clauses highlighted by speakers. Presenters dedicated time differentiating between third-party processes in relation to a regulatory body versus a certification body and their roles in voluntary consensus standards. Presentations also focused on deconstruction of organizational structures to identify legal entities within a certification body.
Attendees took part in a case study exercise to highlight the roles of a certification body (CB) and a scheme owner in terms of a certification scheme. Stakeholders gathered suggestions to be brought up to the PAC Working Group on Product for consideration to improve product certification process related to ISO/IEC 17065.
Presenters included Eamon Monahan of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who provided an overview on the implementation of ISO/IEC 17065 to the EPA ENERGYSTAR certification program. William Hurst of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) provided a presentation on experience with the application of ISO/IEC 17065 for telecommunication certification bodies (TCBs) in the FCC certification program.
Industry stakeholder speakers included Patricia Gleason of the Safety Equipment Institute (SEI, an ASTM subsidiary), who provided details on understanding third-party certification transitioning from Guide 65 to ISO/IEC 17065. And Keith Mowry of UL provided information and discussion related to implementation of ISO/IEC 17065 on a large certification process with a complex organizational structure.
More about PAC
ANSI is a signatory to the Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (PAC) Multilateral Recognition Arrangements for Product Certification (under ISO/IEC 17065), Personnel Certification (under ANSI/ISO/IEC 17024), and Greenhouse Gas Validation/Verification (under ISO 14065). PAC is an association of accreditation bodies whose objective is the creation of a system granting international recognition of conformity assessment certifications in the pacific region.
For more information on accreditation, visit www.ansi.org/accreditation.