Does ISO 17025 Accreditation Help Your Business?

Many labs face pressure to apply for ISO 17025 accreditation. In some cases the accreditation is mandatory and other instances it is not. In either instance, can it help your business grow? We believe the answer is yes. ISO 17025 helps your business in several key regards.

ISO 17025 accreditation:

• Reduces the possibility of mistakes and impurities. The reason the ISO 17025 standards were created in the first place was to help assure the quality and consistency of materials being produced. While it is possible to maintain careful quality assurance without formal accreditation, accreditation provides evidence that you live up to quality standards and the ongoing review process means that an objective outside party is checking your procedures. This means you can rest assured that your business is following best practices in terms of materials and processes. Following these practices reduces the chance that your company is making mistakes or producing subpar or inconsistent materials for your clients. This, in turn, can help limit your liability and ensure happy customers who keep coming back.

• Allows greater transparency. Transparency is valuable both internally and for the sake of clients. If your procedures meet ISO 17025 qualifications, you’ll have careful, clear tracking of all crucial information regarding your processes. Externally, that means you can prove to potential clients how precise your measurements are and how pure the materials you produce are. Internally, that means if there’s ever a question about quality, you can discover the answer easily. And in the unlikely situation of an error, you’ll have all the data you need to track down what went wrong and why, allowing you to correct your process for the future.

• Gives your clients added assurance. Most clients don’t want any question of the reliability of the materials they’re using, as their own businesses and end products depend on it. The fact that you’re ISO 17025 accredited means you have tangible proof of the quality standards you hold yourself to and accountability to a third-party organization. Thus, ISO 17025 is not only a standard in the lab itself; it also serves as added assurance to your clients.

• Qualifies you for more jobs. Increasingly, companies only accept bids from organizations with ISO17025 accreditation or have rules against purchasing from unaccredited sources. Your accreditation serves to widen the pool of potential contracts available to you.

What makes ISO 17025 attractive to your enterprise?

This blog was originally posted on 03/17/15 by one of our customers, ANAB, who accredit testing and calibration labs, inspection and certification bodies, reference material producers, and proficiency test providers.

Categories: Forensic Labs, Testing Labs

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