FLEXIBLE SCOPE IN ACCREDITATION - INTRODUCING VAGUENESS OR BETTER EXPRESSION OF SCOPE

Historically, laboratory accreditation has been grounded on fixed scope of accreditation to establish precisely and unambiguously the range of tests and calibrations covered by a granted accreditation. By the time elapsed it was noticed that such approach sometimes appears to be restrictive since it constrains new or modified methods to be added to a laboratory's scope, even where competence in this general area has already been demonstrated. Accreditation of a flexible scope places more of the responsibility onto the laboratory itself because it imposes to the laboratory to establish and maintain management system that can control its proposed approach. Flexible scope of accreditation yields benefit to all accreditation stakeholders but, on the other hand, introduces more requiring interpretations of relevant standard clauses and includes the bounds of the scope which are defined in more distinct way.