Overview
As the coronavirus pandemic is leading to more and more travel restrictions that are affecting accredited conformity assessment industry globally, many accredited entities are faced with uncertainty in how this impacts their accreditation, that in many cases, is essential to business operations. When these situations occur, accreditation bodies (ABs), within accreditation guidelines, partner with these entities to establish a planned course of action that is reasonable based on the current and expected future situation. Accreditation Bodies use a risk-based approach to determine what oversight approach is most appropriate to a given scope of accreditation and accredited entity. Can an AB obtain the required confidence in operation of the accredited entity through remote assessment? Can an AB still meet their requirement of international accreditation by conducting other surveillance activities outside on-site assessment? This isn’t a simple one size fits all approach, but the one that been to a smaller scale implemented in prior situation when dealing with natural and manmade disasters.
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