The IAS Board
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Why Accreditation?
Hundreds of products are designed every day and thousands of organizations offer diversified services. But which products and services provide the public with quality, value and safety? Answers to this question have become tougher than ever before.
Accreditation can help with the answers. Accreditation can provide confidence in organizations and in the services that they offer. It provides evidence of the reliability of the service rendered by a testing or calibration laboratory or by an inspection agency. Accreditation means, for one thing, that testing and calibration laboratories, fabricators and inspection bodies have been evaluated against internationally acceptable standards to demonstrate their performance capability.
IAS accreditation provides you assurance that the services rendered by accredited laboratories and agencies are of good quality and have been evaluated and proven. Importantly, also, the IAS accreditation process is independent, transparent and dependable.
About IAS
IAS accredits testing and calibration laboratories, inspection agencies, building departments, fabricator inspection programs and IBC special inspection agencies. IAS is a nonprofit public benefit corporation that has been a recognized accreditation body since 1975. Today, IAS is one of the leading accreditation bodies in the United States and a signatory to several international mutual recognition arrangements (MRAs) worldwide.
Advantages of IAS Accreditation
- Complete confidence: IAS accreditation to internationally accepted criteria provides complete confidence in the quality of services provided by fabricators, laboratories and inspection agencies.
- Transparency: IAS accreditation is independent and objective, and is based on a completely transparent accreditation process, thereby instilling confidence in the accreditation results.
- Competency: IAS accreditation provides evidence that laboratories and inspection agencies render competent and consistent services in line with international standards.
- Outstanding quality of assessments: IAS places tremendous importance on the training of its assessors. This leads to high levels of assessor competency and increased technical expertise.
- Enhanced knowledge base: With its excellent knowledge base and team of technical experts, IAS helps to improve the quality of accredited testing laboratories, calibration laboratories and inspection agencies.
IAS Services
IAS provides a wide range of accreditation services, including accreditation of
- Testing laboratories
- Calibration laboratories
- Inspection and quality control agencies
- Fabricator inspection programs for structural steel, concrete and wood-based manufacturers
IAS will accredit these entities irrespective of the economic sector they represent or the scope of inspection involved.
IAS also has plans to expand its activities to include accreditation of providers of personnel and product certifications and training programs.
Goals
To assist code regulators in providing for the public welfare and safety, the fundamental goals of IAS are to:
- Improve the quality of inspection bodies and the services they provide
- Improve the quality of testing and calibration laboratories
- Promote the use of accredited fabricator inspection programs by regulators and the private sector
- Facilitate domestic and international trade by accrediting competent conformity assessment organizations