ANSI/ISO/IEC 17025:2017 is the international standard governing the accreditation requirements of testing and calibration laboratories. Originally known as ISO/IEC Guide 25, ISO/IEC 17025 was initially issued by the International Organization for Standardization in 2000 . There are many parallels with the ISO 9000 standard, but ISO-17025 stresses the concept of competence or expertise to the equation. While ISO 9001 encompasses the "quality management system"; ISO 17025 includes the management system as well as the expertise of the calibration lab. ISO 17025 applies directly to those organizations that produce testing and calibration results.

Since its initial release, a second release was made in 2005 after it was agreed that it needed to have its terminology more in-line with ISO 9001. The standard was first published in 2001 and on May 12, 2005 the alignment work of the ISO committee responsible for it was completed with the issuance of the revised 2005 standard. The most significant changes included a greater emphasis on the responsibilities of senior management, explicit requirements for continual improvement of the management system itself, and particularly the needs of the customer. There are two main sections making up ANSI/ISO/IEC 17025 - Management Requirements and Technical Requirements. Management requirements are primarily related to the operation and effectiveness of the quality management system within the laboratory, similar to ISO 9001. Technical requirements address the competence of staff in performing calibrations, methodology and test/calibration equipment, its uncertainty and traceability to US and international standards. These technical requirements are totally absent in the ISO 9001 standard, thus any lab certified to ISO 9001 and claiming the meet ISO 17025, well that is just a dishonest joke.

Laboratories use ANSI/ISO/IEC 17025 to implement a quality system aimed at improving their ability to consistently produce valid results. It is also the basis for accreditation from an accreditation body such as A2LA. Since the standard is about competence, accreditation is simply formal recognition of a demonstration of that competence. A prerequisite for a laboratory to become accredited is to have a documented quality management system. The usual contents of the quality manual follow the outline of the ANSI/ISO/IEC 17025 standard. Assessments are performed by the accreditation body at least every 2 years to confirm continual compliance with the standard.

Instrumentation2000.com performs calibration in line with ISO 17025 and is accredited to the international standard by A2LA (Certificate Number 2733.01).

Benefits of Accreditation to ISO 17025:2017:
        • Proven technical expertise in the field of calibration
        • Verified standard used for calibration, all traceable to NIST or a recognized NMI
       • Verified and documented calibration procedures
       • Documented quality management system
       • Testing of technicians for competence in tests performed
       • Uncertainty analysis performed for all calibrations
       • Consistency in test results
       • Work is only performed on test the lab is accredited to perform
       • Required participation in proficiency testing and inter-laboratory comparisons
       • Accepted worldwide for calibration and by testing organization such as UL, ETL, CSA