In December 2017, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published a new version of ISO/IEC 17025, “General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories.” (ISO/IEC 17025:2017). Two Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) rules regarding testing and certification and laboratory accreditation and acceptance (16 C.F.R. parts 1107 (testing and certification) and part 1112 (laboratory acceptance)) incorporate by reference ISO/IEC 17025:2005. Currently, under part 1112 CPSC requires that testing laboratories must be accredited to ISO/IEC 17025:2005 for CPSC to accept the laboratory for testing children’s products to CPSC children’s product safety rules. Additionally, under part 1107, manufacturers that have an ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accredited laboratory may extend the period between required third party periodic testing for children’s products.
The International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and ISO have issued a “Joint ILAC-ISO Communiqué on the recognition of ISO/IEC 17025 during a Three-Year Transition [1].” Each ILAC-MRA accreditation body is now establishing internal policies with their accredited laboratories to transition accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025:2017. To allow for the full transition of all laboratories within 3 years from the publication date of the standard, some laboratories will be assessed to the 2017 version of the standard starting this year.
CPSC is providing the following guidance regarding CPSC acceptance of accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025:2017 during this transition period. Similar to the ISO/IEC transition policy, CPSC will accept accreditation to either ISO/IEC 17025:2005 or ISO/IEC 17025:2017. For testing laboratories that apply for CPSC acceptance or CPSC renewed acceptance after the guidance issue date, the CPSC will accept either ISO/IEC 17025:2005 or ISO/IEC 17025:2017.
CPSC is reviewing options in the future to update the applicable CPSC rules to specify the 2017 edition.