Validity of ISO 17025 calibration waivers due to proprietary procedures

[Didos Lament]

I searched for more on this sort of topic, but not much out there.

I have a client that is ISO 17025 and wants to purchase our products, but our products are ISO 9001 MFR and Z-540 calibrated.

Normally I issue a boilerplace waiver to address this since A2LA and others allow such in instances where the cal process is single source or proprietary, but for this product the calibration is not 100% proprietary and in fact we offer a cal kit to the client so they can self cal most but not all of the product's functions. (the product is an RF test box w/spectrum analysis, sig gen, sig rcvr, dist analyzer, mod analyzer, etc)

My questions are thus;
How proprietary must the cal process be before the waiver is not valid?
Where is this subject better explained? (A2LA website or ??)

Thank you for reading.
kyle

 

[CliffK]

A2LA's traceability policy requires calibration to be performed by a recognized cal lab.

Exceptions are permitted if there is no recognized lab for the calibration in question OR if the calibration is an OEM-only activity.

I know of a case where the lab was forced to submit documentation from the equipment manufacturer's web site (equivalent to your waiver, I guess) along with the documented results of web searches for calibration vendors, to prove that no certified lab was available for a piece of equipment.

For more information, go to the A2LA web site and take the FAQ link. In the top search field, select traceability as the category. Type in 'calibration' (without the quotes) as the key word and read the result.

 

[Didos Lament]

Thank You CliffK !
I looked around the A2LA site's FAQ but missed it.
I'll try again...
kyle

 

[CliffK]

Try this link

http://www.a2la.org/faq/faqfinder.cfm

Then make your screen look like the jpeg I uploaded

 

[Hershal]

It should be noted that the original question referred to 17025 accreditation with some additional information regarding "A2LA and others" where the others are not defined.....hence an answer from only one AB (A2LA in this case) can hold true for labs accredited by them, but may not hold true for labs accredited by another AB.....

In other words, for the final answer to this question, check with YOUR AB to get their answer!

Hershal