The EA Horizontal Harmonisation Committee (HHC) held its 18th meeting on 19-20 September in Brussels and fruitful discussions were generated by the 45 attendees.
The Committee was chaired for the last time by Ignacio Pina. Gabriel Zrenner, from DAkkS, will be the new HHC Chair. Ignacio was elected as the new EA Vice Chair in May and started his mandate immediately after the election.
The HHC, like the other technical committees, was invited to consider how to contribute to the tasks arising from the implementation plan of the EA Strategy 2025. A TFG was appointed to discuss one of the prominent objective of the plan, encapsulated in the “One voice” concept and will have to draft a general policy on where and how to harmonise standards used for accreditation.
The HHC will also have to develop rules for use of the future EA MLA mark, together with the communications and Publications Committee (CPC) and the EA Secretariat. The task has been transferred to the TFG in charge of the revision of EA-3/01 EA Conditions for the use of accreditation
symbols, text reference to accreditation and reference to MLA signatory status.
The new ISO/IEC 17011 is on HHC agenda and it was confirmed that a workshop would be run on
the new standard during the March 2018 HHC Meeting, after the refresher training session targeted to EA evaluators in December 2017. Consideration will be given as to how this will impact the MLA, i.e. NAB conformity with the new version within the agreed 3-year transition.
Progress with HHC documents
The revised draft of EA-1/06 EA Multilateral Agreement Criteria for signing – Policy and procedure for signing is now ready for EA ballot. The revision focused on aligning the document to the new policy
on highlighted ILCs and adjusting the scope “Verification and validation”.
EA-2/13 EA Cross Border Accreditation Policy and Procedure for Cross Border Cooperation between EA Members and its Supplement Interpretation of Terminology used in clause 5.1 of EA-2/13 will have to be revised and the proposal will be submitted to the GA in November.
EA-3/01 M EA Conditions for the use of Accreditation symbols, text reference to accreditation and reference to EA MLA signatory status is under revision. A TFG will draft a revision, to be circulated in HHC members by the end of the year.
To reinforce efficiency and consistency (One voice approach) in the application of EA-1/22 EA Procedure and Criteria for the Evaluation of Conformity Assessment Schemes, the HHC agreed a few operational measures. They aim at streamlining flows of information and relations with schemes owners as well as highlighting the respective responsibilities of HHC and the technical committees, Inspection, Certification and Laboratory committees notably with regard to application of EA-1/22.
At the end of the meeting, a vibrant tribute was paid to Ignacio Pina for all the work achieved and the good cooperation that has developed in HHC over the years under his chairmanship. Ignacio Pina thanked HHC members for their confidence and welcomed Gabriel Zrenner the new Chair. Gabriel and the Committee also will have exciting challenges to take up during the next 2 years!