IAS Creates Accreditation Program for Standard Development Organizations
The International Accreditation Service (IAS) is pleased to announce the launch of a new accreditation program for Standards Development Organizations (SDOs). This initiative aims to provide a global, objective demonstration of an SDO’s competence, personnel, organization, experience, knowledge, procedures, and commitment to developing normative documents in accordance with specified requirements.
IAS offers accreditation for SDOs based on accreditation criteria (AC803), which align with national, regional, and international standardization development procedures, documents, and legislation. The accreditation process includes an assessment of the SDO’s standardization process, procedures, and management system.
Key Benefits of IAS Accreditation for Standards Development Organizations:
- Verification of Standardization Procedures and Management Systems: IAS accreditation confirms that SDOs own and apply written standardization procedures and a robust management system, enabling them to develop standardization products in specific fields of expertise.
- Performance Evaluation: Accreditation demonstrates that SDOs have successfully been evaluated on their performance to consistently develop standardization products of the required quality. The accreditation, however, does not cover the standardization products themselves or their design or performance characteristics.
- Objective Certainty: IAS accreditation provides worldwide recognized objective certainty that the outcome of the SDOs’ work is fully documented, objectively performed, and supervised according to specific rules and criteria.
- Valuable Tool for Organizations: The accreditation offers an important tool for public or private, national, or regional organizations, sectorial institutions, entities, or companies to obtain fit-for-purpose standardization products.
Raj Nathan, President of IAS, stated, “Our new accreditation program for Standards Development Organizations reflects IAS’s commitment to promoting quality and consistency in standardization. This program offers a valuable assurance of the SDOs’ ability to develop high-quality normative documents, enhancing trust and credibility in standardization efforts worldwide.”
Michael Tholen, Senior Managing Director of Technical Operations for American Concrete Institute, said “The ICC Family of Solutions has a significant history and expert understanding of the standards-developing process. IAS developed this new accreditation program along those same lines, taking into account the feedback it has received. IAS provides ACI with great confidence that its new accreditation program will be an important tool for all SDOs. ACI welcomes this new accreditation program, and we look forward to working with IAS to incorporate it into ACI’s processes.”
The International Accreditation Service (IAS) is a nonprofit accreditation body and a member of the ICC Family of Solutions. IAS is a signatory of both the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and the International Accreditation Forum (IAF).
For more information about the program or to apply for accreditation, please visit https://www.iasonline.org/services/standards-development-organizations/ .
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