There is an effort going right now to develop a much-needed handbook for implementation of ANS/ISO/IEC 17025:2005 for the NORTH AMERICAN market................

Every recognized AB in the U.S. is in on this.....

Each and every lab that is accredied can and should help here.....

What Clause(s) cause you the most confusion or question?

Why?

Let me know.............................

Is there something wrong with your period key? :D

It seems to me that if a handbook is needed in order to explain the standard, there's something seriously wrong with the standard itself. Why not just fix that instead of creating another document?

Is there something wrong with your period key? :D

It seems to me that if a handbook is needed in order to explain the standard, there's something seriously wrong with the standard itself. Why not just fix that instead of creating another document?

I must agree with you Jim..........................................;)
The standard is relatively straight forward.

The trouble I have noticed most often has to do with measuring and analyzing results. When auditing a lab I see a note such as "Results look good" in the outcomes portion of an improvement project. Now this might be okay if I got to talk with the person who wrote that, but the person has been let go and the new manager had no solid clue.

So I coached him in measurement and analysis, drawing from my experience in Maine's Baldrige program - during which I also noted this was consistently a weak area. (I get to do this because I'm an internal auditor, not a third party). Let us note that when their high-dollar consultant helped establish the lab's QMS, they didn't leave the lab people with this skill.

The key is understanding how the performance impacts the business goal it was set out to improve. Of course that means the measurement should be defined in a way that it's easy to understand what that business goal is. Since we aren't the Borg from Star Trek, we don't intuitively know what our performance goals are for; it should be made plain.
:2cents:

Subcontracting Calibrations!

How to handle reporting results to your customers without just handing over the subcontractors certificate. Every time I ask this question, I get a different answer.

It seems to me that if a handbook is needed in order to explain the standard, there's something seriously wrong with the standard itself. Why not just fix that instead of creating another document? Considering all the books and courses about 'Interpreting ISO 9001' (not to mention the existence of this web site), a handbook which explains a quite simple standard doesn't surprise me at all.

There actually are I believe two handbooks already. This one will be for the U.S. market, using the ANS version.

Sorry about the periods, I forgot I was not in Myspace or Eons at the time.

Sub-contracting calibrations is a good one. Fortunately I don't have that section to write, but I will pass the info to the correct person.