SINCE the establishment of Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC) in 1998 which become functional in 2001, the most frequently asked question is ‘when will PNAC get international recognition by signing Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA)? “Why is PNAC waiting till 2007 to sign MRA on laboratory testing and certification?

The matter is not so simple. Without an insight into MRA, many assume that the signing MRA with the relevant regional and international agencies will establish international recognition of PNAC and certificates issued by its accredited bodies will be accepted automatically worldwide. This article is intended to throw light on the myths attached to MRA of accreditation.

To reduce technical barriers against trade arising from the testing and certification, a global network of accreditation has been established since early 1990’s with the aim of saving time and cost due to multiple testing, inspections, transportation of equipment etc.

International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and International Accreditation Forum (IAF) are the two apex bodies which build upon the existing or developing regional arrangements established around the world.

The organisations participating in these regional arrangements such as Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC) and European cooperation for Accreditation (EA) are responsible for maintaining the necessary confidence in accreditation bodies from their region that are signatories to the new ILAC Arrangement.

Currently, the European Cooperation for Accreditation (EA) and the Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC) are the only ILAC-recognised regions with MRAs evaluation procedures.

The history of signing MRAs is not very long. On November 19, 1997, six APEC member economies signed a mutual recognition arrangement (MRA) under which signatories agreed to recognise the technical equivalence of test reports and calibration certificates issued by their laboratories. To this date there are 17 countries which are MRA signatories to APLAC. There are 14 Multilateral Agreement (MLA) signatories with PAC for QMS, nine for EMS and three for product certification.

Not every accreditation body is a member of APLAC/ILAC. There are certain requirements attached to it. PNAC is a member of APLAC, ILAC and IAF. Pakistan National Accreditation Council will sign MRA with APLAC, hopefully in 2007. The question is why is PNAC waiting for 2007 to sign MRA with APLAC. To answer this question, the procedure has to be understood.

Signing an MRA is done in a number of stages: The first is to establish an accreditation body. The second stage is to prepare a documented system according to ISO Standard 17011 and ensure its implementation. The third stage is to start accreditation of conformity assessment bodies, such as laboratories and certification. The fourth stage is to qualify for membership of APLAC, ILAC, by at least accrediting three labs demonstrating that a quality management system of accrediting according to ISO 17011 is developed and implemented.

PNAC has accredited more than 21 labs and has acquired membership of ILAC. The fifth and the final stage is that of peer evaluation of an accreditation body by the relevant agency. PNAC has already applied for peer evaluation to complete the final stage of becoming a signatory of APLAC and PAC and will complete its final stage in 2007.

Peer evaluation is conducted by a team of experts from other accreditation bodies assigned by APLAC. During the evaluation, the team first checks the implementation of the documents prepared and then follows the assessment team to witness the competence of assessors and technical assessors and check harmonisation among assessors on various technical issues.

Besides, the manual, procedures, policies of accreditation, the conduct of various technical courses etc all comes under thorough review to ensure compliances to international requirements. This activity is conducted after every four years to maintain membership as MRA signatory.

The third stage was the toughest, when PNAC had to launch accreditation scheme, and not even a single expert on accreditation was available in the country. Further accreditation could not be started overnight. It had to be done in several phases.

On the one hand PNAC had to develop its capacity to conduct these assessments and on the other, awareness had to be raised among laboratories regarding the need for accreditation and then training on ISO 17025- an international standard for laboratory management.

This was not enough as the quality infrastructure needed improvement, such as the metrology department, i.e. the National Physical and Standards Laboratory (NPSL) needed to be strengthened to provide international traceability to laboratories. Not even a single proficiency testing (PT) provider has been available; so our labs had to participate in the proficiency testing schemes around the world, which is quite costly.

To cope up with these situations, other acceptable alternatives were discussed with our counterparts in other countries. Now PNAC is in the process of identifying labs which can provide PT schemes within the country, and hopefully by the mid-2006 there would be PT providers which are trained to run PT schemes according to international requirements at much cheaper cost as compared to foreign PT schemes.

It is hoped that the signing of APLAC MRA in 2007 will help manufacturers in shipping products tested by accredited laboratories to the economies of MRA signatories without further testing. These savings are particularly important for small businesses, who may not pursue new markets because of the overwhelming cost of repetitive testing.

But the concept of ‘tested once accepted everywhere’ is an ideal situation and the real life situation is somewhat different. There have been instances where one MRA signatory will not accept another MRA signatory, sometimes even within the same economy but mostly from a different economy. But this practice is discouraged and the trend is moving towards, ‘tested once, accepted everywhere’.