JANAAC to Add Fourth Standard to Scope of Services

The Jamaica National Agency for Accreditation (JANAAC) is in the process of adding a fourth standard to its scope of services.

“This fourth standard is for the accreditation of calibration laboratories to the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard and is important for Jamaica, in support of our metrology system,” said the agency’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sharonmae Shirley, who addressed a JIS ‘Think Tank’, on June 8.

Ms. Shirley shared that the National Metrology Institute resides at the Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ) and “we want to ensure that we have accredited metrology labs in the region”.

“We want to ensure that we have not only the technical competence and the team members to provide this accreditation service [but also we must ensure] that when we provide this service it is recognised internationally, because that is what it is all about,” she explained.

“Otherwise, we would just be serving those institutions within our borders, but we want to ensure that when this is done their calibration certificates are accepted worldwide,” Ms. Shirley added.

The CEO pointed out that “we currently have international recognition for three standards and, year on year, we have been expanding our portfolio of services”.

These are the standards for testing laboratories, the standard for medical testing laboratories and the standard for inspection bodies.

To achieve this fourth recognition, the Agency successfully completed the evaluation stage during November and December of 2022 and is working to complete the process in the coming months.

“In order for us to even apply for a recognition for our certification accreditation programme that we launched in 2021, we had to be members of International Accreditation Forum (IAF), and in order to be members of the IAF, we would have had to accredit an entity and establish that its services are recognised by the industry,” Ms. Shirley said.

The JANAAC team worked tirelessly and not only became a member of the IAF, but had their membership into the IAF consolidated in May of this year.

“This is important for us because as a consequence of this membership and the fact that we will be seeking signatory status for our certification accreditation programme, it means that we can be of greater service to our constituents, especially as we support exportation,” the CEO said.

She mentioned, too, that last year, JANAAC was recognised as one of four accreditation bodies globally that had the approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) to accredit certification bodies in their accredited Third-Party Certification Programme.

“This is phenomenal because it’s not just that we are one of four accreditation bodies globally but JANAAC is the only accreditation body that has 10 of the possible 11 scopes, so we aim for the top and we continue to strive for mastery,” Ms. Shirley said.

“Our recognition by the FDA, coupled with the accreditation of our certification body has given us the edge, so we are now members, and then we will go for recognition of that fourth standard,” she added.

While work is being done to complete the process for the fourth standard; the agency is also providing accreditation services to a fifth scope.

The JANAAC is an agency under the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce mandated to facilitate trade between Jamaica and its trading partners, by enabling Jamaica’s Conformity Assessment System to meet international standards and the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade.

Source: JIS