ISO 17025:2017 Overview

ISO/IEC 17025:1999, General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories, released in 1999, is the international standard for establishing calibration and testing laboratory quality management systems and recognizing laboratory technical competence through accreditation. ISO/IEC 17025:2017 was released in November 2017 to provide better alignment to the requirements of ISO 9001:2015.

This standard was drafted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Committee on Conformity Assessment (CASCO) Working Group (WG) 10, and replaced ISO/IEC Guide 25, General Requirements for the Competence of Calibration and Testing Laboratories, and EN 45001, General Criteria for the Operation of Testing Laboratories.

All ISO 9001:2015 requirements that are relevant to the scope of testing and calibration laboratory quality management systems (QMS) have been incorporated into ISO/IEC 17025:2017, along with technical competency requirements.

The release of ISO/IEC 17025:2017 is the latest stage in the process of developing laboratory quality and competence standards, which has been going on for more than 20 years.