History of ISO/IEC 17025

ISO/IEC 17025 replaced ISO Guide 25 in 1999, and incorporates the “text” of ISO 9001:94 with the laboratory specific language of ISO Guide 25 to make a laboratory quality management system requirement. ISO/IEC 17025 has had two revisions since then, it was revised in 2005 and then in 2017 to keep up-to-date with the industry, introducing technology into the requirements, and also trying to follow the ISO 9001:2015 standard as closely as possible.

Read more about the changes between ISO/IEC 2005 and 2017

ISO/IEC 17025 Today

In November of 2017 the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) with the collaboration of IEC  has released a new version of ISO/IEC 17025 Requirements for Testing and Calibration Laboratory. The format of the new standard has changed significantly. It was the first time the standard was updated in 12 years, and the changes reflect the changes in other ISO standards such as ISO 9001:2015, along with industry changes. One of the most important aspects of ISO/IEC 17025:2017 is the emergence of the concept of risk. This implies a series of changes that directly and indirectly affect requirements that already existed in previous version: impartiality confidentiality, corrective actions, assurance of the validity of the results. There are many benefits of implementing ISO/IEC 17025 into your lab discussed here.