By Brad Kelechava
ISO/IEC 17000, the international standard for vocabulary and general principles related to conformity assessment, has a new revision in development. Now in the approval stage, the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) of ISO/IEC 17000 has been released.
Like the previous iteration of this standard, “ISO/IEC FDIS 17000:2020—Conformity Assessment—Vocabulary And General Principles” specifies general terms and definitions relating to conformity assessment, including the accreditation of conformity assessment bodies. It also specifies terms for the use of conformity assessment to facilitate trade.
Informative Annex A of ISO/IEC FDIS 17000:2020 features general principles of conformity assessment and a description of the functional approach to conformity assessment.
What’s changed in the new ISO/IEC 17000?
The first edition of ISO/IEC 17000 was released in 2004, consolidating content previously found in ISO/IEC Guide 2. The second edition of ISO/IEC 17000, developed by the ISO committee on conformity assessment (CASCO), will contain several key revisions.
Notably, Annex B, “Related terms defined in other conformity assessment standards,” was expanded. The term “product” was deleted from the body of the ISO/IEC FDIS 17000:2020 document and added to Annex B. Annex A also underwent an editorial revision.
Furthermore, several new terms were added to ISO/IEC FDIS 17000:2020: “object of conformity assessment,” “owner,” impartiality,” independence,” “validation,” “verification,” “decision,” “expiry,” and “restoration.”
What is a Final Draft International Standard?
When an ISO standard in development incorporates technical changes following comments at the Draft International Standard (DIS) stage, the FDIS stage become mandatory. According to ISO: “The Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) is submitted to ISO/Central Secretariat (ISO/CS) by the Committee Manager. The FDIS is then circulated to all ISO member[s] for an 8 week vote. […] The standard is approved if a two-thirds majority of the P-members of the TC/SC is in favor and not more than one-quarter of the total number of votes cast are negative.”
If you’d like to learn more, please refer to Stages and Resources for Standards Development.
ANAB accreditation and the ISO/IEC 17000 series
Although ISO/IEC 17000 does not define the boundaries of conformity assessment, it supports a host of standards in the conformity assessment arena, as well as related fields.
In fact, the ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB), a wholly owned subsidiary of ANSI, accredits against many international standards in this series. For example, ANAB offers accreditation for forensic service providers to ISO/IEC 17025 and for forensic inspection services to ISO/IEC 17020, laboratory accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025, and product certification accreditation for ISO/IEC 17065, ISO/IEC 17025, and ISO/IEC 17020, among other key program areas.
Anyone in the spheres of accreditation, certification, and conformity assessment benefits from ISO/IEC 17000, as it aggregates many key definitions. However, it is worth noting that additional concepts unique to activities like accreditation, certification of persons, and use of marks of conformity are not included in ISO/IEC FDIS 17000:2020 but instead found in international standards related to those activities.
This FDIS is currently bundled together with related standards as part of the following standards packages:
- ISO/IEC 17000/17011/17021 Conformity Assessment Package
- Conformity Assessment Package
- Competence and Proficiency Testing Package
You can learn more about all the accreditation ANAB has to offer at https://anab.ansi.org/.
About the author
Brad Kelechava is the social media marketing manager at the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
This article originally appeared on the ANAB blog and is published here with permission.