By Caleb Guedes-Reed on December 10, 2020
ISO/IEC 17025 is a tough standard for both beginning quality professionals and experts alike. That’s why, over the past year, we partnered with A2LA and A2LA WorkPlace Training to create a series of webinars around one of the most noteworthy aspects of 17025 accreditation – nonconformances. Through these webinars, we had the chance to learn more about the standard from seasoned experts in the field of quality and compliance and to gain key insights in achieving and maintaining accreditation.
If you didn’t have a chance to watch these webinars live, I recommend checking out the recordings below.
In the first episode of our webinar series on ISO/IEC 17025:2017 on common nonconformances, Tim Osborne, Vice President of A2LA WorkPlace Training, reveals that 1,278 (38%) of the nonconformances that have been found by A2LA assessors deal with section 6.4 or the standard: equipment maintenance and calibration requirements. Considering the broad scope of the standard as a whole, this is a very significant observation.
In this episode, we were joined by Frenika Rivers, an A2LA Accreditation Officer, to learn more about the most common findings surrounding management reviews (Section 8.9) and ways to help you think about how to complete your management review. You’ll find this webinar very helpful in the thinking through the operation of your laboratory.
In the third episode, we had the opportunity to learn from Ms. Bibi Abdullah. Abdullah is an Accreditation Specialist at A2LA. In case you didn’t know, the majority of nonconformances are related to section 6.6 of the standard. In fact, 21% of all deficiencies are from section 6.6, specifically 6.6.2. That’s why in this episode, Bibi highlighted the top 5 clauses that receive nonconformances and gave us examples of how laboratories can address and prevent them.
Here we sat down with Roger Brauninger, the Technical Training Consultant at A2LA WorkPlace Training to discuss section 7.7 of the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard. In his current role, he provides technical training and consulting, primarily for organizations involved in the life sciences. This episode is all about risk management!
In the last video in our series, we shifted our focus to section 7.5 of the ISO/IEC 17025 standard which looks at technical records. In this episode, Pam Wright, Instructional Design Manager at A2LA WorkPlace Training, gives us an overview of the top nonconformities, a refresher on section 8.4, the requirements of section 7.5, and provides us with examples of common nonconformities within the section as well as tips for avoiding them!
Categories: Audits, Compliance Management, Process Management, Quality Managers, Training