Accreditation of Environmental Testing Labs by a Non-Governmental Accreditation Body (NGAB) - How is This Different from a State Accreditation?
Operational and Advocacy Issues Impacting the Environmental Laboratory Industry
Oral Presentation
Prepared by C. Gunning
A2LA, 5202 Presidents Court, Suite 220, Frederick, MD, 21703, United States
Contact Information: cgunning@A2LA.org; 240-575-7481
ABSTRACT
A2LA received recognition as a non-governmental accreditation body (NGAB) from The NELAC Institute (TNI) for accrediting environmental laboratories, using ISO/IEC 17025 and the TNI standard on January 23, 2017. The National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program (NELAP) typically utilizes state accreditation bodies to evaluate and accredit environmental testing laboratories. This recognition identifies A2LA as being equivalent to the state accreditation bodies and confirms that A2LA has demonstrated capability to ensure laboratories’ competence to provide accurate and defensible analytical data analyzing environmental samples using approved methods.
This presentation will detail how the accreditation process used by approved NGABs is built and implemented to be equivalent to TNI state accreditation bodies by meeting the requirements detail in ISO 17011. It will also discuss the challenges faced by laboratories seeking to employ NGABs for their accreditation needs due to individual state regulations.
Operational and Advocacy Issues Impacting the Environmental Laboratory Industry
Oral Presentation
Prepared by C. Gunning
A2LA, 5202 Presidents Court, Suite 220, Frederick, MD, 21703, United States
Contact Information: cgunning@A2LA.org; 240-575-7481
ABSTRACT
A2LA received recognition as a non-governmental accreditation body (NGAB) from The NELAC Institute (TNI) for accrediting environmental laboratories, using ISO/IEC 17025 and the TNI standard on January 23, 2017. The National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program (NELAP) typically utilizes state accreditation bodies to evaluate and accredit environmental testing laboratories. This recognition identifies A2LA as being equivalent to the state accreditation bodies and confirms that A2LA has demonstrated capability to ensure laboratories’ competence to provide accurate and defensible analytical data analyzing environmental samples using approved methods.
This presentation will detail how the accreditation process used by approved NGABs is built and implemented to be equivalent to TNI state accreditation bodies by meeting the requirements detail in ISO 17011. It will also discuss the challenges faced by laboratories seeking to employ NGABs for their accreditation needs due to individual state regulations.
