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Webinar Recap – Behind the Schemes: Understanding ISO/IEC 17024, Clause 8

Professional Testing conducted a webinar “Behind the Schemes:  Understanding ISO/IEC 17024, Clause 8” on July 7, 2016.  The purpose of the webinar was to expand on Clause 8 of the standard.  ISO/IEC 17024: Conformity Assessment – General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons is designed to be a best practices International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard by which Certification Bodies and others operating Certification Programs can evaluate their own performance or to which a third party accrediting body can accredit a Certification Body as meeting.  It is called a conformity assessment standard because it is designed to be used to determine if one is in conformity with the requirements.  In the United States, it is the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) who evaluates and accredits Certification Bodies to this standard.

ISO/IEC 17024 was updated in 2012.  One of the major changes in the update was an entire section on scheme development and the possibility for a scheme to be developed and owned by a party other than the Certification Body.  The previous version of the standard (2003) stated that the Certification Body had to appoint a committee who would be responsible for developing and updating the scheme.  The 2012 version changes to say that there must be a scheme for every certification program and then goes on to define the criteria that must be included in the development and maintenance of the scheme.  It doesn’t matter who develops and owns the scheme.  It could be the Certification Body, a governmental agencies, or a third party.  Regardless of who develops and/or owns the scheme, the scheme must meet the requirements of clause 8 of ISO/IEC 17024 if the Certification Body using it is to be in conformity with ISO/IEC 17024.

The webinar covered the following six areas which are the six main areas in Clause 8 of ISO/IEC 17024:

• Certification scheme categories
• Elements of a certification scheme
• Process requirements
• Development and review of the certification scheme
• Continual review and validation of the scheme for persons
• Obligations of the scheme owner

After defining terms that were to be used in the webinar, Dr. Cynthia Woodley and Dr. Christine Niero proceeded to elaborate on Clause 8.  Many of the concepts presented in the webinar are available in an ISO CASCO document developed by Dr.’s Woodley and Niero among others.  The document is available here for free download.

Additionally the webinar and associated handouts are available here.

Categorized in: Industry News, Professional Testing Updates