DOCUMENTS Country Report Expertise Centre COUNTRY REPORT 2006 - 2007

3.4 Accreditation system

3.4.1    National acceptance

3.4.1.1    Accreditation and GLP

3.4.1.2    Notification and notified bodies

3.4.1.3    Cooperation with stakeholders

3.4.2    International acceptance

Looking back at the situation in 2002, shows very clearly that accreditation started off against all odds. Already in the 1980’s activities were started to increase quality awareness of the Turkish market. The biggest driving force was obviously the export market. In particular the closeness to Europe and the activities in the EU influenced Turkish manufacturers in a very substantial manner. However, in the lack of a functioning quality infrastructure, each branch and in fact each manufacturer had to solve its own problems in its own way.

A result of the quality activities of the 1980’s was the quality organisation KalDer. KalDer is a member of EOQ and grants the national quality award every year. Simply stated, KalDer promotes quality assurance and the use of different quality assurance techniques like TQM, ISO 9001:2000, etc. The mission of Kalder is to improve quality management in Turkey both in the public and in the private sector. Traditionally KalDer did not play a role in standardisation or in promoting accreditation. However, representatives of KalDer have contributed to the establishment of TÜRKAK through participation in the different project reference groups since the second half of the 1990’s. Typically, Kalder arranges training activities and the national quality congress. It also publishes quality management literature.

Representatives of KalDer, Chambers of Commerce and Chambers of Engineers were very active in the work accomplished during the second half of the 1990’s under the leadership of DTM, when the TÜRKAK law was put through parliament and the embryo of the new accreditation body was started. At the same time there were regulations empowering TSE and TÜBITAK to accredit on the Turkish market. Thanks to visionary management and the results of the Country Reports both TÜBITAK and TSE found their real place and role in the Turkish quality and conformity assessment arena and finally TÜRKAK became the sole Turkish national accreditation body.

It is under the shadow of this history that TÜRKAK was finally established and had to create a market for accreditation of conformity assessment bodies. TÜRKAK was seen upon as still another government agency which was expected to act slowly upon request and would, generally speaking, not be aware of the needs of the market. This is naturally not a very good reputation to start off with, particularly if the reputation is inherited and not earned.

3.4.1    National acceptance

3.4.1.1    Accreditation and GLP

When the project was launched at the end of 2002 and the first audit visit took place in 2003, TÜRKAK had very little national acceptance. In fact, the knowledge on TÜRKAK on the Turkish market was close to none.

In 2002, in close compliance with the law, TÜRKAK had 28 employees. It had accredited a total of 5 bodies and was handling 25 applications. The accreditation personnel of TÜRKAK were relatively young and inexperienced. This was particularly true in the fields of laboratory accreditation, inspection and EMS. There was an urgent need to increase the know-how and hands-on experience of the TÜRKAK accreditation officers and assessors, in all fields. The first report issued in 2003 contained a total of 14 recommendations for the accreditation system. The majority of these were concerned with TÜRKAK’s internal processes and national acceptance.

Today TÜRKAK has a total of 153 accredited conformity assessment bodies (statistics of December 2006).

This table shows the development as a comparison between 2002 and 2006.

There is an agreement between the relevant ministries and TÜRKAK appointing TÜRKAK as the National Monitoring Authority for GLP. However, the distribution of roles between TÜRKAK and the ministries is not quite clear yet.

TÜRKAK also accredits laboratories in the medical field. However, it has chosen to do it to ISO/IEC 17025 instead of ISO 15189, for the moment being.

3.4.1.2    Notification and notified bodies

TÜRKAK has formally been appointed to assess the Turkish candidate notified bodies. This appointment is documented through protocols signed with the relevant ministries and authorities. TÜRKAK has signed protocols with the following ministries and authorities,

• The Ministry of Public Works,
• The Ministry of Trade and Industry,
• The Ministry of Environment,
• The Ministry of Health,
• The Ministry of Labour,
• The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs,
• The Undersecretariat for Maritime Affairs,
• The Telecommunication Authority.

3.4.1.3    Cooperation with stakeholders

TÜRKAK has developed its cooperation with the stakeholders and stakeholder organisations. In particular, TÜRKAK, on demand, helps TÜRKLAB with training courses both on technical and general subjects in the conformity assessment arena.

TÜRKAK has also close cooperation with UME (The Turkish National Metrology Institute). UME is both a client and the top level traceability provider to the clients of TÜRKAK. UME also provides proficiency testing and interlaboratory comparisons for the clients of TÜRKAK.

3.4.2    International acceptance

The development and present status of TÜRKAK is the biggest success story of the present project. Many of the development projects proposed by the experts for TÜRKAK were taken on board immediately by TÜRKAK management and solved with its own efforts and in some cases with support from Germany. In this respect the TÜRKAK management has shown great capability to take action in its own capacity. The support provided to TÜRKAK during the project has therefore been of a more advanced nature than what was envisaged from the beginning. For this purpose, EA has led a cooperation project with TÜRKAK to help TÜRKAK reach the ultimate goal to sign the EA MLA and consequently the ILAC and IAF MRA arrangements.

Since April 2006 TÜRKAK is a signatory to the EA MLA for testing, calibration, inspection, QMS certification. TÜRKAK has also applied to be evaluated for product certification, EMS and certification of persons. The evaluation is expected to take place during 2007.

Since May 2006, TÜRKAK is also a signatory to the ILAC MRA for testing and calibration. In June 2006, TÜRKAK has applied for membership of IAF and the decision is expected to be taken during the first few months of 2007.

Being in a region with neighbours in two continents, TÜRKAK has had the advantage of being able to cooperate with both east and west. TÜRKAK has training activities in countries like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan,Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan, Tatarstan, Mongolia, Moldovia. It has also been asked to arranged training courses in Saudi Arabia. TÜRKAK has also training activities for the countries in the Middle East and South Western Asia. Thus TÜRKAK contributes to the dissemination of the international European accreditation practices in a developing region.

TÜRKAK has participated in a number of projects since 2000, in order to reach its present status. Some of these are listed here.

• PTB Project: This is the technical support project of Germany in order to build an accreditation system in Turkey. It started in 2000 and was completed at the end of 2005.
• MEDA Project: In 2006, within the DELTUR/MEDTQ/040-04 project TÜRKAK experts have made study visits to EA member accreditation bodies such as SWEDAC (Sweden), NA (Norway), UKAS (United Kingdom) and RvA (The Netherlands).
• GLP ‘Good Laboratory Practice’: Twinning Project between Slovakian Standards, Metrology and Testing Institution and Refik Saydam Hygiene Center is commenced. The duration of the project is 21 Month. Interministerial consensus was reached for the national GLP Monitoring Authority to be established within the Turkish Accreditation Agency (TÜRKAK)
• EU-MEDA Proficiency Testing and Interlaboratory Comparisons:Identification, Support and Evaluation: The long term technical support project is commenced on December 2005 and the duration of the project is 19 months. TÜRKAK supports the project by giving a working  office, located in TÜRKAK premises, to the national/international experts. TÜRKAK also supports the project by giving permission to use TÜRKAK’s training and meeting rooms free of charge.
• Accreditation Awareness Raising Project: Total duration of the project commenced on September 2006 is 9. The project team is supported by TÜRKAK Training and Public Relations Department.

In the meanwhile TÜRKAK continues its cooperation project with EA in order to strengthen its quality infrastructure.

In summary, TÜRKAK has achieved international acceptance by,

• Taking on board without delay all proposed improvements and developments
• Using its resources in the best way to achieve its goals
• Using the foreign resources provided to it in the best manner to achieve its goals
• Signing the EA MLA and the ILAC MRA
• Using its acceptance among its eastern neighbours to disseminate European and international accreditation practices