The IECEE/CB Scheme is the ‘flagship’ amongst IEC’s 4 international conformity assessment (CA) systems, with currently some 120,000 CB Test Certificates/Reports issued annually. It presently encompasses 93 national certification bodies (NCBs) with nearly 600 associated testing labs (CBTLs/SPTLs) and more than 2000 client manufacturer testing facilities (CTFs).
The basic concept of this scheme is mutual acceptance of testing reports as basis for national certification in the respective member countries. Today, a large proportion of the CB Test Certificates/Reports issued are also used directly in the marketplace and between businesses as proof of compliance with the governing technical safety standards.
As basis for both the mutual recognition and market recognition, the participating certification bodies and testing laboratories are subject to strict requirements as documented in various rules and procedures etc.
The requirements are publicly available on the IECEE website, together with other information about the scheme, including the current member countries, the operating NCBs, and testing labs. The rules for being accepted as an operator in the scheme, include the international quality system standard ISO/IEC17065 for the product certification bodies and ISO/IEC17025 for testing labs.
To ensure compliance with the requirements, each NCB and CBTL/SPTL is assessed initially and then 3-yearly.
The assessment is by experts from the other participating operators, wherefore this control regime is referred to as ‘peer assessment’. So, the basic purpose is that the recognizing parties can ascertain that the issuing parties have qualifications and quality at their own level. The accepted manufacturer labs (CTFs) are likewise assessed by the NCBs they are registered with.
The assessment teams are appointed by the IECEE Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, out of a stable of some 500 qualified Lead Assessors and Technical assessors, of which about 300 are in Asia,150 in Europe, 50 in America.
The assessors are themselves subject to a strict qualification program, which entails both initial and 3-yearly training.
Therefore, the annual course is rotated on 3-yearly basis between the regions. Last year it was in America, this year in Europe and will next year be in Asia.
The course which is conducted by a team of 7 lecturers (incl. the editor of this newsletter), goes over three days and is completed by an exam.
For further information please contact the editor.
(The article is based on the information provided by T. Sollie)