ISO 17025 v. ISO 9000 – What’s the Difference?

Years ago, there was a television commercial featuring a shabby looking mechanic in a run down garage who said, “Cool, I’ve always wanted to work on a transmission.” The message was clear. Why trust your car and family safety to someone who is not an expert? Go to someone you know can do the job – a transmission specialist.

The same rule of thumb applies to verifying the accuracy of your instrumentation – why go to someone who has not taken the time and effort to perfect their calibrations, someone whose own claims are open to question? Questions about the accuracy of your equipment can often lead to many thousands of dollars (or more) in litigation fees when there is no proof that the accuracy and dependability of your conclusions are based on set standards and procedures. This is where ISO 17025 comes into play.

There are ISO accreditations for different fields; these are quality standards set by the International Standards Organization. ISO 9000 is the accreditation standard for manufacturing facilities. ISO 17025 is the one that specifically applies to accuracy of calibration. To receive this accreditation, laboratories must meet rigorous requirements in areas of operation, including but not limited to, certification by a third party, professional training, customer and technical support and estimated uncertainty, which is the mathematical description of errors associated with any given measurement. This trail backs up the laboratory’s accuracy claims, which are also verified by comparison of the lab applying for the accreditation with other national and international laboratories. You can rely upon the fact that using instrumentation from an ISO 17025 accredited laboratory will guarantee that your equipment is calibrated to the highest standard.

Bios International is one of the few manufacturers with its own ISO 17025 laboratory, and our precision levels of 0.25 percent are traceable to standards from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and accredited by the NVLAP. As they say, “It doesn’t get any better than this”.

Bios International’s ISO 17025 accreditation by NVLAP of NIST, along with our technical papers and interlab comparisons, is available on our website at www.biosint.com.