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Report on the EA Laboratory Committee Meeting
in Rome on 21 and 22 March 2012
This meeting of the EA Laboratory Committee (EA LC) was chaired for the first time by the new chairman, Paolo Bianco, ACCREDIA. The Italian national accreditation body ACCREDIA, the host of the meeting, was established in 2009 as a merger of the former independent accreditation bodies SIT, SINAL and SINCERT. The EA LC elected Natalija Jovicic Zaric from the Serbian accreditation body ATS as vice-chair. EUROLAB was represented by Irache Visiers Sanz and Manfred Golze.
The results of EUROLAB’s inquiry on opinions and interpretations in test reports were presented and discussed. It was decided to establish a small task force group (TFG) consisting of Trevor Thompson (Convener), UKAS, Cecilie Laake, NA, Claudio Boffa, NAB Malta, Christina Bertler, ENFSI, and Manfred Golze, EUROLAB. Based on a discussion of a previous meeting (September 2009) the TFG will produce a paper on this issue.
A related issue was raised within an EGOLF presentation by Gert van den Berg. On behalf of EGOLF, a European organisation for fire safety testing, inspection and certification, he requested a better harmonisation concerning accreditation criteria and procedures. In particular he underlined different policies concerning the accreditation of so called extended applications and classification of fire safety products according to the relevant extended applications or classification standards. It was underlined that the extended applications or classifications might be a special case of opinions and interpretations. Again the establishment of a TFG was decided with André Barel, RvA, Erik Oehlenschlaeger, DANAK, and experts of COFRAC and BELAC as members.
The subject of accreditation scopes in general and of flexible scopes in particular was addressed several times. Among others it was reported on a seminar on food testing which took place in Brussels on 8 December 2011. Concerning the mandatory accreditation of official food testing control laboratories in the framework of the regulation EC 882/2004 the representatives both of DG SANCO and of the national authorities underlined the need for flexible accreditation and demanded more harmonisation among EA members. Examples of flexible scopes in the areas of forensic as well as food and environmental testing will be published as annexes to the EA document 2/15 EA requirements for the accreditation with flexible scopes. The topic will be discussed again at the next EA LC meeting in the light of the new ILAC G18 Guideline for the Formulation of Scopes of Accreditation for Laboratories. The EUROLAB delegates emphasised that the problem is rather a lack of harmonisation concerning the formulation of scopes in general. EUROLAB should submit again the study of EUROLAB-Spain on accreditation scopes as input to the discussion.
Laurent Vinson, COFRAC, raised again the question of reissuing test reports without re-testing e.g. in cases when the trade mark has changed. Since during the meeting DANAK advocated this practice with reference to clause 5.10.9 of ISO/IEC 17025 a decision on this question was postponed until the next meeting.
Additionally the following issues were addressed:
· Measurement uncertainty
A revised version of the EA document 4/02 Estimation of the Uncertainty of Measurement in Calibration will be sent out for voting soon. The document will be mandatory just like the corresponding ILAC P14 ILAC Policy for Uncertainty in Calibration. When drafting EA-2/02 it was intended to avoid any conflicting requirements or differences in terminology.
· Knowledge transfer
Philip Taylor, IRMM, gave a presentation on modern ways of knowledge transfer and referred to the TrainMiC activity as a model.
· EEE-PT
The joint EA, EUROLAB, EURACHEM Working Group on Proficiency Testing (EEE-PT) will launch an inquiry among EA members on their views and experiences with ISO/IEC 17043 Conformity assessment – General requirements for proficiency testing.
The EA LC supported the view of the EEE-PT to withdraw EA-3/04 Use of PT as a Tool for Accreditation in Testing.
Brian Brookman, the EEE-PT chairman, expressed his concern about a lack of an EA MLA for accredited proficiency testing providers.
The EA LC agreed to ask the 4E+C chairpersons’ meeting to decide on a possible expansion of the EEE-PT membership.
· ISO 15189
A new version of ISO 15189:2007 Medical laboratories -- Particular requirements for quality and competence will be available soon after a rather minor revision.
· Microbiology
EURACHEM is going to revise the former EA-4/10 Accreditation for Laboratories Performing Microbiological Testing.
· EA Advisory documents
A Task Force Group had performed an inquiry among EA members concerning the use of EA Advisory Documents. It was decided to repeat this inquiry including the stakeholder organisations in order to obtain a more representative result. Deadline is 1 June 2012.
· EURAMET TC-Q
A meeting will be arranged of EA LC delegates with some representatives of the EURAMET Technical Committee Quality (TC-Q) which is operating the EURAMET peer reviews on the quality systems of NMIs according to ISO/IEC 17025. Chairman of the TC-Q is Pavel Klenovský, Czech Republic.