News — Transitioning to ISO/IEC 17025:2017

The turning of the calendar to a New Year is traditionally the time when we stop and reflect on the coming year and changes that we may want to make. This is always a good time to take a look at your laboratory's management system and to assess whether improvements are in order.  Laboratories making the change to ISO/IEC 17025:2017 For laboratories that have not yet made the change to the 2017 version of ISO/IEC 17025:2017, now is the time to start planning for the changes. Don't wait until your assessment is looming and then rush to make the required...

While researching the content for the upcoming webinar, Assessments under ISO/IEC 17025:2017 - The results so far, several labs provided their lessons learned about their first assessment to the revised standard.  Risk-based thinking tops the list of items that labs grappled with while updating their management systems. Under the 2005 version of the standard, risk was managed. Now laboratories need to understand where there are risks and opportunities and proactively assess risks throughout the management system. Most laboratories reported that they had trouble understanding what needed to be done on risk. The laboratories that reported they were comfortable with risk-based...

During the last week of April, CALA hosted our Biennial Training session for our volunteer assessors. The focus of the training sessions was on the revised ISO/IEC 17025 standard and the impacts on assessments. The changes to the standard are expected to impact what assessments will look like. There was general agreement that assessing what used to be included in Section 4 of the 2005 version of the standard will take more time. Also, assessments will be less compartmentalized. For example, it was common for one assessor, usually the lead, to assess the management requirements, while the rest of the...

Now that the new version of the ISO/IEC 17025 standard has been published, laboratories are starting to look at the necessary steps to update their management systems to meet the new requirements. The main question laboratories are asking is what has changed? CALA is providing a Xwalk document that will help you answer that question. You can access the document from the CALA Transition page at this link.  This page has additional resources to help support accredited laboratories make the transition from the 2005 version of the standard to the 2017 version.  To get more details on the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard, register...