A question has come up about a company that we are using to calibrate or CMM's. The company is Midwest CMM Services and they are accredited with KEMA for ISO and accredited with SICMMSE for 17025. The question that has came up was that some auditors auditing at a plant that we use to be affiliated with are questioning if this is a legal accreditation. They are saying that SICMMSE is just a group of engineers that created a society and this is no good.

Are these auditors right? Or are the just trying to push A2LA? I have a lot of A2LA certs along with ACLASS and NVLAP but this is the first with SICMMSE.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Dale

From this side of the pond a can of worms comes to mind. If an organisation purports to be an accreditation body and you can't easily find their website it raises some questions. Do they still exist ? What they should be (but I can't check) is a mutual support association of labs accredited to ISO 17025 by recognised ABs that represents their common interests in forums with those recognised ABs, just as in the UK we have the British Measurement and Testing Association.

Accepting labs with SICMMSE certificates comes down to familiarity of customers with this very specialised calibration activity. SICMMSE is not an ILAC/IAF recognised accreditation body. It is unlikely that a specialised association like this ever could be. They appear to be 9001 certified by a CB that is accredited by ANAB to do conformity assessment, but that's all.

Are your affiliated auditors correct? I think so, if they are acting as surrogate customers and the certificates are not acceptable to them.

However, it's not illegal. There are other "accreditation" bodies out there apparently doing good business and not in the mutual recognition agreements.

Thanks I soon remembered after I posted that I used a different company last year. (cost savings) and they are accredited to Perry Johnson so I am OK. But the plant that we use to be affiliated with has used the other company since 1991. So I don't know if they can get it past the auditors or not. We shall see. Hopefully it works out for them.

Thanks
Dale

Dale

There are only five accrediting bodies that are recognized, that is, signatories to a Mutual Recohnition Arrangement (MRA).....those five will be accepted by each of the others.....they are:

IAS http://www.iasonline.org

A2LA http://www.a2la.org

NVLAP http://www.nvlap.gov (I think)

L-A-B http://www.l-a-b.com

ACLASS (Not sure of the website address)

Any U.S. based AB other than these may well get rejected by one of these recognized ones.....

As for "pushing" any AB, if you are shopping, talk to ALL FIVE before signing with EITHER of them.....in other words, there are options, and it pays to be a smart shopper.....

Dale



ACLASS (Not sure of the website address)

Any U.S. based AB other than these may well get rejected by one of these recognized ones.....

As for "pushing" any AB, if you are shopping, talk to ALL FIVE before signing with EITHER of them.....in other words, there are options, and it pays to be a smart shopper.....



ACLASS: http://www.aclasscorp.com

:mg:
I just googled SICMMSE and came to your posting from a couple of years ago. We just got nabbed for accepting a certification from an optical comparator company who sent us the "certification" from SICMMSE.
I wish I found your posting sooner. Now I'm stuck writing a corrective action.
LK