Another peer evaluation of ATS

During last week the Accreditation Body of Serbia (ATS) was peer evaluated again by the EA peer evaluation team in accordance with the EA-2/02 M: 2011 EA Policy and Procedures for the Multilateral Agreement (Annex 9) and the application that ATS submitted at the end of 2012 to extend the scope of the EA MLA to include certification bodies providing certification of management systems and certification bodies providing certification of persons.

The peer evaluation was performed in the period between 9^th and 13^th September 2013 to evaluate the compliance of established accreditation system in accordance with the requirements of ISO/IEC 17011, relevant requirements of the EU legislation (Regulation (EC) No. 765/2008), and with guidance documents of international organisations for accreditation (EA, ILAC and IAF).

In addition to assessments performed at the ATS head office, witnessing of the work of the ATS assessment teams was performed during assessments of 11 conformity assessment bodies (2 testing laboratories, 2 calibration laboratories, 2 certification bodies providing certification of management systems, 1 certification body providing certification of products, 1 certification body providing certification of persons, 2 inspection bodies, and 1 medical laboratory).

Pursuant to the said procedure, and after the draft report will be produced by the EA team, ATS will propose undertaking of adequate actions in order to eliminate the identified nonconformities and concerns. After the proposed corrective actions have been adopted by the EA team, the report will be produced and sent to the EA MAC Secretariat. The EA MAC Task Force Group will be established and it shall submit its opinion to all EA members. At the EA MAC meeting both the report of the EA peer evaluation team members and report of the EA Task Force Group will be analysed, and we believe that a decision on signing of the multilateral agreement between ATS and EA will be made by majority vote. The signed EA MLA will, in addition to testing laboratories, calibration laboratories, medical laboratories, inspection bodies and certification bodies providing certification of products, include certification bodies providing certification of management systems and certification of persons.