LRQA Gains ISO/IEC 17021 Accreditation Across North America
09/22/2008
Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance, Inc. (LRQA) has gained accreditation by the three North American accreditation bodies.
Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance, Inc. (LRQA) has gained accreditation by the three North American accreditation bodies: ANSI-ASQ American National Accreditation Board (ANAB), the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), and the Mexican accreditation entity Entidad Mexicana de Acreditacion (ema) to ISO/IEC 17021, the International Standards Organization (ISO) standard which gives the requirements for certification bodies delivering all types of management-system certification. This accreditation gives LRQA ISO/IEC 17021 approval across North America.
LRQA’s ANAB, SCC, and ema accreditations come after an announcement in May of this year when LRQA was the first certification body to make the transition under the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) to ISO/IEC 17021 accreditation on a global level. LRQA was the only certification body to be awarded ISO/IEC 17021 accreditation by UKAS for all three management-system products: QMS (ISO 9001), EMS (ISO 14001) and OHSAS (OHSAS 18001) for all industry-sector scopes.
“We’re pleased to have successfully demonstrated LRQA’s commitment to the progression of management-system certification. The important steps taken to achieve these accreditations signify our continued dedication to our clients and the management-systems industry. We recognize that as we make strides towards continual improvement, we’re better placed to enable our clients to do the same,” commented Kunden Dhillon, Vice-President LRQA, Inc and Business Center Manager for LRQA United States.
Accreditation places rigorous requirements for competence and impartiality on the bodies that offer audit and certification to management-system standards like ISO 9001:2000 (quality management), OHSAS 18001: 2007 (health & safety) and ISO 14001:2004 (environmental management). ISO/IEC 17021 replaces and improves on two separate documents, ISO/IEC Guide 62:1996 and ISO/IEC Guide 66:1996, and the new standard requires changes to the ways in which assessments are to be performed by certification bodies.
There are two major changes that will impact organizations with certified quality and environmental management systems:
ISO/IEC 17021 strengthens the requirement on certification bodies for a three-year certification cycle with a recertification audit, including a new requirement that the recertification audit and the decision on issuing the new certificate must be performed before the expiration of the existing certificate.
ISO/IEC 17021 also introduces a new requirement with regards to the way in which “Minor Nonconformities” (minor deficiencies present in a management system that is being audited) are addressed during the certification process. Under the new requirement, certification bodies are not allowed to issue a certificate to an organization where Minor Nonconformities have been raised until it has reviewed and accepted the organization’s plan to correct the issue in question.
For further information on the new ISO/IEC 17021 standard, please contact us at operations-usa@lrqa.com.