53rd IAAC Executive Committee meetings

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IAAC held its Executive Committee meetings in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, in March 2020. Representatives from accreditation bodies and conformity assessment organizations in the region attended IAAC’s beginning of the year meetings.

During its meeting, IAAC created a Working Group which is developing a new IAAC Strategic Plan for the 2020-2025 term to establish the goals and guidelines that the Cooperation will be aiming at for the next five years.

The IAAC Multi-lateral Recognition Arrangement is the basis for operating equivalent accreditation systems in the countries of the region. The MLA Committee created a Working Group to analyze the effectiveness of the MLA evaluation process indicators and suggest ways to improve them. IAAC is carrying out efforts to improve the MLA process, to ensure that deadlines at every step of the process are met, to optimize the use of limited peer evaluator resources.

On March 13, 2020, IAAC members analyzed and made decisions regarding the COVID-19 outbreak and its potential impact for accreditation bodies and conformity assessment bodies in the region. The IAAC MLA Committee agreed that IAAC shall follow the recommendations of the current and future statements issued by IAF and ILAC and posted on their websites regarding the COVID-19 outbreak. The IAAC MLA Committee agreed that each Accreditation Body shall document how it will address the impact caused by the COVID-19 outbreak and the application of alternative assessment techniques to ensure the competence of accredited conformity assessment bodies. The IAAC MLA Committee also decided that the accredited Conformity Assessment Bodies shall document how they will address the impact caused by the COVID-19 outbreak and the application of alternative conformity assessment techniques, in compliance with the guidelines established by the Accreditation Body.

IAAC Membership

IAAC currently has a total of 61 members, 24 of which are full members, 4 are associates and 33 are stakeholders. Since last year, IAAC accepted 3 new Stakeholder members from Ecuador, Peru and Mexico.

IAAC MLA Signatories

IAAC has a total of 20 MLA signatory members from 17 countries. The IAAC MLA continues to grow, 2 MLA Group members recently extended their MLA scopes. In August 2019, ONAC of Colombia was accepted as an MLA signatory for Medical Laboratories, Proficiency Testing Providers and Persons Certification. On January 20, 2020, the Jamaica National Agency for Accreditation, (JANAAC), extended its MLA scope to include Inspection Bodies (ISO/IEC 17020).

IAAC MLA recognition by IAF and ILAC

IAAC is a Recognized Regional Cooperation for the main scopes of Testing (including Medical) and Calibration Laboratories; Inspection Bodies; Management Systems Certification Bodies (with subscopes QMS, EMS, FSMS, ISMS, MDMS and EnMS), and Product Certification Bodies (with sub scope Global G.A.P). IAAC received peer evaluations from ILAC to extend its MRA recognition for the scopes of Proficiency Testing Providers (PTP) and Reference Materials Producers (RMP) in 2018 and 2019. IAAC is currently waiting on the ILAC AMC decision regarding these scope extensions. IAAC also submitted an application to IAF to extend its MLA recognition for the scopes of Persons Certification Bodies and Green House Gases (GHG) Validation/Verification. The IAF evaluations for these scopes are scheduled to take place before 2021.

The IAAC officers

The current key IAAC officers are:

Liliane Somma of OUA, Uruguay, IAAC Chair

Andrea Melo of Cgcre, Brazil, IAAC Vice-Chair

Elias Rafoul of SCC, Canada, IAAC Treasurer

Ferney Chaparro of ONAC, Colombia, as MLA Group and MLA Committee Chair

Robert Knake of A2LA, USA, as MLA Group and MLA Committee Vice-Chair,

Training

IAAC carried out a training workshop for new peer evaluators on ISO/IEC 17011:2017, in August 2019, in Mexico City, Mexico. The Mexican Accreditation Body (ema) graciously hosted the workshop, which had 24 Spanish speaking participants from the region which were qualified as trainee peer evaluators.

IAAC also carried out a training workshop for new peer evaluators on ISO/IEC 17011:2017, in October 2019, in Washington DC, USA. The host body was ANAB. 14 English speaking peer evaluator applicants participated in the workshop and were qualified as trainee peer evaluators.

The Quality Infrastructure Cooperation of the Americas, (QICA) is a partnership of regional bodies with the objective of promoting the strengths of a Quality Infrastructure in the region of the Americas. QICA includes a representative from the regional standards body (COPANT), the regional accreditation cooperation (IAAC) and the regional metrology body (SIM). A QICA outreach event to Mexican regulators and government officials took place in August 2019 within the framework of the IAAC General Assembly and was hosted by ema, the Mexican Accreditation Body. The event was attended by 21 persons. The exchange of information was lively with issues raised on various topics such as risk assessment and how new technologies impact conformity assessment services. The participants went away with a deeper understanding of the value that standards, measurements and accreditation can provide in supporting the work of government regulators.

IAAC Meetings

You are invited to attend the next IAAC General Assembly meetings to be held in Montreal, Canada, from August 14-21, 2020.