With over 120 participants from 47 countries, the EA General Assembly started today in Berlin. At the assembly of the European accreditation organization EA, representatives from national accreditation bodies and the industry gather twice a year.
In cooperation with the German accreditation body (DAkkS), the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) conducted a study, which compares the functioning of accreditation bodies in Europe in order to identify and promote "best practices".
In the past few years there has been a remarkable demand for specific management systems based on ISO / IEC 17021-1: 2015. DAkkS has evaluated two certifiable standards in this area and included both of them into its accreditation portfolio.
A kick-off meeting held in Baku in September saw the official launch of a Twinning project between the European Union and the Azerbaijani Accreditation Centre (AZAC).
With more than 3,500 guests from 71 countries, the 80th IEC General Meeting of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) started on Monday. The participants in the IEC world congress are coming together from 10 to 14 October 2016 in Frankfurt am Main to deliberate on important decisions for electrotechnical standardisation.
At the end of September, Dr. Stephan Finke, Chief Executive Officer of the German accreditation body DAkkS, welcomed Anil Jauhri, CEO of the Indian accreditation body NABCB (National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies), to talks in Berlin. The focus of the talks was on future cooperation in the area of accreditation.
With effect from 1 September 2016, Dr. Stephan Finke is new Chief Executive Officer of the German accreditation body Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle (DAkkS). He succeeds Norbert Barz, who in the autumn will be handing over the role to his successor and leaving the company on grounds of age at the end of 2016 after seven years in the position.
The so-called „metrological traceability” is one of the pillars of conformity assessment. The German national accreditation body (DAkkS) has adjusted its requirements regarding the metrological traceability policy in order to meet the requirement of the European Cooperation for Accreditation (EA).
Change in the Hungarian accreditation system: In accordance with the new Accreditation Act approved in the Hungarian Parliament the country's national accreditation body NAT ceased its activities on 31st December 2015.
Since 1 January 2016 DAkkS applies a new fee schedule for the accreditation of conformity assessment bodies abroad falling outside the scope of EU Regulation (EC) No. 765/2008.