Korea Accreditation Board (KAB) has participated in the IAF-ILAC 2024 Mid-Term Meetings held from April 3rd to 30th, 2024. The following are some key points discussed in the meeting.

International Accreditation Forum (IAF) is a worldwide association of accreditation bodies and other bodies interested in conformity assessment in the field of management systems, products, processes, services, personnel, validation and verification, consisting of 95 accreditation bodies, 27 association members, and 6 regional accreditation groups.

Through signing the multilateral Recognition Arrangement (MLA) in the conformity assessment field between accreditation bodies, IAF contributes to removing technical barriers to trade and facilitating world trade. To this end, IAF develops and establishes application guidance for ISO/IEC standards and guides in areas such as management system certification, product certification, personnel certification, and other conformity assessment fields. This provides a common interpretation of certification requirements and promotes cooperation through information exchange between accreditation bodies.

Twice a year, at the mid-term and annual meetings, IAF members gather to discuss and decide on issues related to conformity assessment.

At this year’s online mid-term meetings held via Zoom, KAB not only identified trends in major international standards and document revisions and expressed its opinions, but many participated the meeting from various relevant departments including the assessors to respond to technical activities through attending the TFs, WGs, and committees.

The main results from participating in the meetings are as follows:

ㅇ Strengthened KAB’s participation in IAF activities to enhance international cooperation and raised awareness

In accordance with the “Mid- to Long-term Plan for Participating in International Meetings and Peer Evaluator Training,” KAB actively participated in WGs and TFs, such as the Personnel Certification and Food Certification WGs, to actively express KAB’s opinions.

ㅇ Confirmed the need for guidelines to respond to climate change amendments to management system standards

As these amendments did not follow the formal standards revision process, there was a discussion on the need for unified guidelines at the IAF level.

ㅇ Identified trends in major international standards and document revisions

ㅇ Established KAB promotion strategy through analysis of IAF promotional activities

KAB will benchmark through analysis of content and SNS channels used by IAF, and promotion will be conducted internally and externally to avoid confusion with the new GLOBAC logo for the single IAF/ILAC organization.

(Left) IAF/ILAC Communications Joint WG Screen (Right) Draft GLOBAC logo (draft) for the single IAF/ILAC organization

The topics discussed at the Mid-Term meetings will be further developed and discussed again for decision at the General Assembly in October in Berlin.