NATIONAL FOREWORD

This Indian Standard (First Revision) which is identical with ISO/IEC 17011 : 2017 ‘Conformity assessment — Requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies’ issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) jointly was adopted by the Bureau of Indian Standards on recommendation of the CASCO National Mirror Committee and approval of the Management and Systems Division Council.

The standard was originally published in 2006 and was based on ISO/IEC 17011 : 2004. The first revision of this standard has been undertaken to align it with the latest version of ISO/IEC 17011 : 2017.

The major changes in this revision are as follows:

a) Alignment with the CASCO common structure for standards and incorporation of CASCO common elements in clauses on impartiality, confidentiality, complaints and appeal and management system;

b) Recognition of proficiency testing as an accreditation activity;

c) Addition of new definitions for "accreditation scheme" (see 3.8), "flexible scope of accreditation" (see 3.7), "remote assessment" (see 3.26) and "assessment programme" (see 3.27);

d) Introduction of the concept of risk; and

e) Incorporation of competence criteria in the document, including an informative annex on knowledge and skills.

The text of ISO/IEC Standard has been approved as suitable for publication as an Indian Standard without deviations. Certain terminologies and conventions are, however, not identical to those used in Indian Standards. Attention is particularly drawn to the following:

a) Wherever the words ‘International Standard’ appear referring to this standard, they should be read as ‘Indian Standard’.

b) Comma (,) has been used as a decimal marker, while in Indian Standards, the current practice is to use a point (.) as the decimal marker.