ISO/IEC 17025 at Final Stage of Revision

The revision of ISO/IEC 17025, the international standard for testing and calibration laboratories, started in February 2015 and has now reached the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) stage. This is the last leg of development before the publication of the revised standard, planned for the end of 2017.

The new standard takes into account the activities and new ways of working in laboratories today.

The main changes include:

• New structure to match other existing ISO/IEC conformity assessment standards.
• Alignment of process approach with other newer standards such as ISO 9001: 2015.
• Risk-based thinking and requirements to plan and implement actions to address risks and opportunities.
• Stronger focus on current information technologies used in laboratories.

Please visit the ISO news page for more details about the revision process and other key changes introduced in the new standard.

In view of this upcoming publication, SAC has prepared a transition policy. Following ILAC’s recommendation, SAC will give accredited laboratories 3 years to migrate to the revised standard after it is published. Laboratories who are not accredited to the revised ISO/IEC 17025 standard after the deadline will not be allowed to issue SAC-accredited reports or certificates.

SAC will provide more information on the transition activities once the revised standard is published.