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International Activities

CALA Participation in International Mutual Recognition of Accreditation

CALA is a Full Member of APLAC

CALA is a signatory to the Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC) (www.aplac.org) Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) for testing. CALA participates in both the Technical Committee and the Proficiency Testing Committee. CALA provides two trained evaluators to APLAC for the evaluations required to grant recognition. One is also a lead evaluator. Two more are being trained this year.

In July 2005, CALA was evaluated by a team from Thailand, Australia and Indonesia . Four “Concerns” and eight “Comments” were raised during the evaluation. CALA provided response to these by 15 August and the APLAC Evaluation team deemed the CALA responses to be appropriate and acceptable.

On November 17, 2005, CALA achieved signatory status in the APLAC Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) for testing. On the same day, CALA also was accepted as a Full member (MRA signatory) of ILAC for testing.

CALA is a Full Signatory Member of ILAC for Testing

As of November 17, 2005 CALA is a Full Member of ILAC(www.ilac.org) [i.e. signatory to the MRA] for testing .  To download a copy of the MRA signing, click here. To download the ILAC Membership list in Word format, click here.

The following definition of "Full Member " is an extract from the document "ILAC S2: 2003 ILAC Rules" (.pdf) found on ILAC's website.

	a. FULL MEMBERS are accreditation bodies that meet the requirements for Associates (see 4.2b) and have been accepted as signatories to the ILAC Mutual Recognition Arrangement;
	b. ASSOCIATES are Accreditation bodies that:
	i)	operate accreditation schemes for one or more of the following services: testing laboratories calibration laboratories inspection bodies other services as decided from time to time by the ILAC General Assembly.
	ii)	can provide evidence that they are operational and committed to comply with: the requirements set out in relevant standards established by appropriate international standards writing bodies such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and ILAC application documents; and the obligations of the ILAC Mutual Recognition Arrangement;
	iii)	are recognised in their economy as offering an accreditation service;

CALA participates in the ILAC Laboratory Committee, Arrangement Committee, and the Proficiency Testing Consultative Group.

In 2004 the Laboratory Committee undertook a survey of lab responses to the implementation of ISO/IEC 17025 and many Canadian labs responded; download the report.

The New Accreditation Body Standard - ISO/IEC 17011

The new standard that governs how laboratory accreditation is ISO/IEC 17011. The ILAC membership had decided that it was to be implemented by accreditation bodies by 31 December 2005 if they wish to maintain their international recognition.

As a result of becoming an independent accreditation body, CALA was in a much better position to demonstrate conformance to this standard.  ISO/IEC 17011 and its draft revisions, have been part of the CALA quality system since 2001.

For the information of CALA members, the documents below show the changes in requirements that have been implemented within CALA.

ISO/IEC FDIS 17011
ISO/IEC FDIS 17011 Comparison to the documents to be replaced
ISO/IEC Guide 58 Comparison to ISO/IEC FDIS 17011