How can you prepare for an ISO 17025 audit of your testing lab?

When I worked in the UK we had a laboratory audit to accredit us to the British equivalent to ISO 17025. Our first challenge was that the auditor knew nothing about lubricating greases. We went through the scope and demonstrated that we could perform all the tests in our schedule. The auditor asked only a few questions and checked calibrations of things like scales, weights and thermometers. The only issue he had was that we were testing copper corrosion and he wanted to know if the approved testers had been tested for color blindness. We got a corrective action to get tested. One technician failed and had to be removed from the list of tester for copper corrosion. We passed the audit and got added to the company accreditation schedule.

During the Audit: Welcome the Auditor: Be professional, courteous, and provide the auditor with access to all necessary documents and areas. Answer Questions Honestly: Provide clear and concise responses to auditor inquiries. If you don't know an answer, admit it and offer to find the information. Demonstrate Procedures: Be prepared to demonstrate your testing procedures and protocols in action. Address Non-Conformances: If the auditor identifies any non-conformances, acknowledge them immediately and explain your corrective action plan.

I propose first contacting the auditor to learn about their timetable, goals, and criteria. This permits proactive response to probable nonconformities through corrective and preventive actions. Continuously assessing the efficacy of your quality management system sets laboratories for success in audits. Maintaining an open discussion with assessors helps to ensure that evaluations go smoothly. With a focus on rectifying irregularities, laboratories can demonstrate compliance and technical competence during evaluations.

I ran an ISO 17025 accredited lab and the key point is to ascertain the % uncertainty in running each test... so not only do you have to constantly assess your equipment performance but your people performance... ASTM offers a very nice round Robin program with laboratories all over the world which we also participated. This is very important for establishing credible numbers especially in grease where operator technique and process can greatly decrease precision and accuracy...

Conduct Internal Audits: Before the external audit, perform internal audits to identify any gaps or non-conformances in your system. Address these issues proactively. Train Your Staff: Educate your team about the audit process, their roles and responsibilities, and how to respond to auditor inquiries.

My staff and I attended an ISO 17025 Lead Auditor certification course with Rick Litts of Litts Quality Technologies. Having this as a starting point, and building upon the quality systems we had developed for the nuclear power industry (NQA-1) have positioned us for success. As Khashayar has indicated, preparation with internal audits and correcting what you find will certainly make the process and the external audits smoother.

Fully agreed to attend this type of ISO 17025 Lead Auditor training program will provide very good prospective to look for testing, review records, training, accuracy, precision, repeatability, reproducibly, analytical errors, customer feedback, calibration, signatories' knowledge, skills, verification, a lead auditor will look for more on safety, risk assessments. Lead auditor training and role is very important for a lab to conform any testing, test methods, training confirmation etc. It is honor for the Lead auditor, if he read the laboratory practices, procedures, protocols, SOPs which is eventually successful conduct of 17025 audit. Lead auditor plays an important role during process of ISO 17025 audit, Thanks, Thanaraj

My staff and I attended an ISO 17025 Lead Auditor certification course with Rick Litts of Litts Quality Technologies. Having this as a starting point, and building upon the quality systems we had developed for the nuclear power industry (NQA-1) have positioned us for success. As Khashayar has indicated, preparation with internal audits and correcting what you find will certainly make the process and the external audits smoother.