ABOUT THE PROJECT

As is known “Accreditation” delivers confidence in certificates and reports by implementing widely accepted criteria set by the European (CEN) or international (ISO) standardisation bodies. The standards address issues such as impartiality, competence and reliability; leading to confidence in the comparability of certificates and reports across national borders. Governments have confidence in testing and certification in support of regulatory functions.

The authorized body in Turkey is the Turkish Accreditation Agency, which is also known as “TÜRKAK”. TÜRKAK is responsible for accreditation in accordance with the relevant national, international and European standards and guides, and the applicable national, international and European requirements.

The project “DELTUR/MEDTQ/040-04” is a part of “Support to the Quality Infrastructure in Turkey” and does mainly focus on preparing and helping TÜRKAK to become an EA-MLA signatory.

The main objectives of this projects are:

- To provide help on the issues, requested by TÜRKAK
- To ascertain the legal basis for accreditation in Turkey
- To prepare TÜRKAK for signatory status to EA-MLAs
- To help TÜRKAK become a European player in the accreditation field

The project is coordinated by Mr. Ed Wieles from RvA, who is also the key expert of the project. He is replacing Dr. Jos Leferink, as he has retired as of 1st of May, 2006. There are also some EA experts from different accreditation bodies like UKAS, DACH, SWEDAC, NA, DAP, TGA and RvA involved in this project.

Project specifics (1)

Support focuses mainly on:

- Notification (training and documentation)
- Training of assessors for accreditation
- Training of trainers
- Hands on advise of assessors (shadowing)
- Training of staff
- Reviewing Q-documents

Project specifics (2)

Focus is further on support in:

- Internal audits
- KPI self-assessment
- Modification of the law on accreditation
- Modification of the law on notification
- Full joint assessments of selected CABs

Impartiality

EA’s support does not conflict with EA’s formal evaluation for signatory status.

- Participating countries will be excluded from the evaluation/decision process.
- The MLA chair also key expert will be replaced after October 2005 and will not be part of the MLA committee.

Status of the project

The project had started at the last quarter of 2004. The planned finalization date was mid 2006, however an additional activity was requested by the DG ENTR in Brussels for the candidate Turkish NoBos within this project. Therefore the project was prolonged until September 2006, even though the project has reached its goals. TURKAK has signed for EA-MLAs for testing, calibration labs, inspection body and QMS in April’ 06. TURKAK has also applied for the rest of the scopes (product, personeel to become signatory.

last updated: 01.08.2006
burcak.oztekin@expert-centre.org