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The ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB) is an international non-profit, non-governmental, independent organization and accrediting body that provides accreditation and training services for numerous types of laboratories. ANAB offers accreditation programs and training courses for the communications, energy, environmental, food and beverage, forensic, and manufacturing industries.[1][2] Over the years, the organization has also acquired other accrediting organizations such as Forensic Quality Services, Inc. (FQS) and Laboratory Accreditation Bureau (L-A-B), adding their accreditation programs to ANAB's offerings.[3][4]
ANAB's predecessor was the Registrar Accreditation Board (RAB), founded on November 13, 1989[5] as an affiliate of the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC; later just the ASQ) "to develop a program to evaluate the quality of services offered by [quality system] registrars."[6][7] Teaming up with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), RAB began development of the American National Accreditation Program for Registrars of Quality Systems sometime between 1990 and December 1991.[8][6] RAB would eventually get certified by the NQA (National Quality Assurance) and begin offering an ISO 9000 auditor certification program in 1992.[6][9]
Needs changed, however, and RAB was replaced by the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board on January 1, 2005. As a partnership between ANSI and the ASQ, the restructuring was done for several reasons: "to comply with a new international requirement that a national accreditation body be a legal entity," and to split off auditor certification and training activities from its original management systems accreditation services.[5][9] The organization would later add accreditation services for testing and calibration labs, judged to be missing component by the company, through the acquisition of Assured Calibration and Laboratory Accreditation Select Services (ACLASS) in October 2007.[10][11] ANAB expanded their laboratory accreditation services further with the acquisition of Forensic Quality Services, Inc. (FQS) in November 2011, expanding into realm of forensic testing and inspection.[3][5] However, with all these offerings, the company realized "the use of three different brands has caused confusion in the marketplace." ANAB announced in November 2014 that it would be "operating as a single brand" under the ANAB label beginning in January 2015.[5][12]
In December 2015, ANAB announced it had made another acquisition, this time agreeing to take on the Accreditation Services Bureau (A-S-B) d.b.a. Laboratory Accreditation Bureau (L-A-B) in order to expand its testing and calibration laboratory accreditation services. Despite its November 2014 announcement of brand integration, however, ANAB stated that it at least initially "will maintain the L-A-B brand and L-A-B customers will continue to be accredited under the L-A-B symbol."[4]
On April 22, 2016, ANAB announced yet another acquisition, this time signing "an affiliation agreement with The American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board (ASCLD/LAB), merging ASCLD/LAB into ANAB."[13] ANAB stated that with the merger ASCLD/LAB employees would be kept, the ASCLD/LAB brand would be maintained, and "current ASCLD/LAB customers will continue to be accredited under the ASCLD/LAB accreditation symbol."[13]
Per ANAB's decision in 2014 to unify brands, the ACLASS testing and calibration lab accreditation programs and the FQS forensic accreditation lab/crime unit programs were essentially moved under the ANAB accreditation program brand, beginning on January 1, 2015.[5][12] For example, the former FQS ISO/IEC 17020 program is now the ANAB ISO/IEC 17020 Accreditation Program for Forensic Inspection Agencies[14], and the FQS ISO/IEC 17025 program is the ANAB ISO/IEC 17025 Accreditation Program for Forensic Testing Laboratories.[15]
The exception to this appears to be the accreditation programs offered by L-A-B, acquired in December 2015. Covering areas of accreditation such as the energy, environmental, food and beverage, forensic science, and manufacturing industries, the L-A-B accreditation programs will remain under the L-A-B brand and symbol.[4][16]
ANAB offers tens of different accreditation programs for laboratories and testing centers, each with their own varying requirements.[17] Application review, on-site assessments, quality review, and, if necessary, corrective action resolutions are conducted before the final review and accreditation decision. The ANAB website does not make it clear, but the accreditation likely lasts for two years[18] as long as the lab remains compliant and maintains obligations such as notification of significant changes to primary policies, resources, organization, and legal ownership.
After acceptance, ANAB will use the renewal assessment process to ensure a lab's compliance with the body's accreditation standards. In the unusual case of a laboratory failing to pay fees, provide audit and certification staticis, or comply with any of the body's other accreditation requirements, ANAB may choose to place the lab on suspension. Once on suspension, the affected lab must satisfy certain conditions before being able to again operate and eventually be reinstated, though the reinstatement process may vary slightly by infraction or accreditation program.[19] In extreme cases of non-compliance, ANAB can also choose to completely withdraw the lab's accreditation.[20]Template:Broken link
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