THE Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) is joining standard organisations world over in observing World Accreditation Day today.

The day was jointly established by the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) to raise awareness of the importance of accreditation.

GNBS Public Relations Officer (PRO), Lloyd David, said the agency, as the national accreditation focal point, is offering services to support organisations and businesses to implement international best standards.
This year’s theme, he said, focuses on how accreditation provides added value to the supply chains.

“Supply chains provide a vital role in delivering products and services for consumers, business and the public sector in a timely, cost-efficient and quality manner,” David noted.
According to IAF and ILAC, although businesses have been producing items with goods sourced from around the world for many years, supply chains are now significantly more complex in terms of speed, scale, depth and breadth of global interactions.

David said the global nature of the supply chains and retail markets mean that businesses have to operate in multiple and often differing regulatory environments.

“Determining the quality, authenticity and traceability of raw materials or components requires credible and trustworthy information,” he said.

And on this note, the GNBS PRO explained that accreditation and other quality infrastructure tools such as standards, metrology and conformity assessment, provide widely accepted tools that help deliver value to the supply chain.

“These tools help with trust and assurance, enabling confidence in both final products and services and the manner in which they are placed on the market and used,” he said.
As in previous years, David said the day will be celebrated across the world with the hosting of major national events, seminars, and press and media coverage, to provide the opportunity to explore how accreditation can help deliver a safer world and to support businesses, government and regulators to find standards, conformity assessment and accreditation tools to support them in this goal.
Locally, business organisations are becoming accredited according to international standards.

The list includes the Guyana Rice Development Board Central Laboratory and the Government Analyst Food and Drug Department.

These are accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard: General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories.

In addition, medical institutions are also ensuring that they too are getting ahead of the game and are today reaping the benefits of being accredited.

These institutions are the Eureka Medical Laboratory Inc. and the Dr. Balwant Singh’s Hospital Inc. They are accredited to the ISO 15189 standard: Medical Laboratories — requirements for quality and competence.