{"id":1130,"date":"2019-07-15T15:52:02","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T15:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/?p=1130"},"modified":"2019-07-15T16:04:12","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T16:04:12","slug":"iso-iec-17000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/15\/iso-iec-17000\/","title":{"rendered":"The Revision of ISO\/IEC 17000"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Generally, speaking, the ISO 17000 series of standards and documents (any document starting with 17xxx) are meant to be used for conformity assessment.\u00a0 These would include ISO\/IEC 17024<\/a>: Conformity Assessment – General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons; <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ISO\/IEC 17011<\/a>: Conformity assessment – Requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies; and ISO\/IEC 17021: Conformity assessment – requirements for bodies providing audit and certification of management systems.\u00a0 All of these 17000 series standards and documents have a common structure and are based on a common vocabulary.\u00a0 ISO\/IEC 17000 is the vocabulary document associated with all of ISO\u2019s 17000 series documents.\u00a0 It\u2019s formal name is ISO\/IEC 17000: Conformity Assessment \u2013 Vocabulary and general principles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last published in 2004, ISO\/IEC 17000 is currently\nundergoing revision.  An ISO\/IEC working\ngroup (WG49) has been working on this revision for the past year.  The revision will likely be finalized this\nyear (2019) or early next year (2020).  ISO\/IEC\n17000 contains conformity assessment terminology intended to be used by all of\nthe ISO\/IEC 17000 series of standards<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISO\/IEC 17000 is designed to be a consistent framework within which conformity assessment concepts are defined. The terms included in 17000 are terms that are consistent <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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with all 17000 standards.  Terms where the dictionary definition suffices are not included.  If there are terms that are related only to a specific standard, then they are defined in that standard and not in ISO\/IEC 17000.  For example, the term \u201cinvigilator\u201d is unique to ISO\/IEC 17024 and so it is not defined in 17000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, 17000 describes the functional approach to conformity assessment.\u00a0 The functional approach is a series of activities (functions) that the auditor\/assessor follows when conducting an audit\/assessment to determine if specific requirements in a standard are being met.\u00a0 The functional approach consists of five major functions (selection, determination, review, decision and attestation).\u00a0 The graphic provided illustrates the process of the functional approach.\u00a0 Person Certification Bodies can relate to the functional approach because they do the same thing when certifying people.\u00a0 They select what they are going to assess (in this case a person).\u00a0 Then they determine what specifically they are going to evaluate (the competencies).\u00a0 Next they review the data they have gathered (test results, etc.) and they make a decision as to whether or not the person meets the standard.\u00a0 And if the person does, they attest (award a certificate) that the person meets the standard.\u00a0 Similarly, when an accreditation body such as ANSI<\/a> conducts an accreditation assessment of a certification body to ISO\/IEC 17024, they select, determine, review, take a decision, and then attest. The functional approach has been the basis for all conformity assessment and certification activities for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before revision of the standard could begin, the working group created concept maps for all of the terms it believed should be included in the revised standard.  A concept map is a diagram showing how the terms related to one another.  This helps the members of the WG ensure they are thinking about the same \u201cconcepts\u201d when talking about a particular term.  Below is an example of a concept map for functional approach terms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the diagram you can see that Selection<\/strong>, Determination<\/strong>, Review<\/strong>, Decision<\/strong> and Attestation<\/strong> function activities are part of conformity assessment<\/strong>. Under selection, you can see that Sampling<\/strong> is a type of Selection.  Similarly, Testing<\/strong>, Inspection<\/strong>, Auditing<\/strong>, Verification<\/strong>, Validation<\/strong> and Peer Assessment<\/strong> are types of determination function activities.  You can see that an Accreditation Body<\/strong> is associated with Accreditation<\/strong>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A number of concepts maps were generated and then the WG set\nabout to define the terms.  A number of new\nterms were added.  These include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n