Delivering high quality residual stress measurement results to our customers is a top priority for Hill Engineering, and one way we ensure that is by maintaining an active ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation. We recently went through an external assessment to renew our accreditation status that looked at the inner workings of our quality management system and laboratory processes.
To prepare for the assessment, our quality management team first submits the requested documentation to the accreditation body. This includes items such as personnel training records, residual stress measurement standard operating procedures, and other critical quality documentation. The accreditation body then assigns an assessor who does their own review of the submitted documents and schedules a time to come to our laboratory for an on-site assessment.
During the on-site assessment, demonstrations of our various residual stress measurement techniques and discussions about our processes and policies occur. If it is found that we are not meeting a requirement of the ISO/IEC 17025 standard, we are given time after the assessment to address the deficiency.
To address a deficiency, we follow our corrective action process. We perform a root cause analysis, determine the best corrective action to address the root cause(s), revise or create the needed documentation to support the corrective action plan, and, finally, implement the plan. Laboratory activities or management practices are monitored to ensure the chosen corrective action is effective, and if so, the process is complete. Our objective evidence for addressing the deficiency is submitted to the accreditation body and any follow-up work is performed, if necessary.
While we hope that an assessor does not find any deficiencies during an assessment, addressing any findings ultimately helps us improve our laboratory processes which, in turn, helps us achieve our goal of providing high quality residual stress measurements to our customers.
If you are interested in our ISO 17025 residual stress measurement services, please contact us.