September 9, 2025 • 38 mins
Pete Unger takes us behind the curtain of the global laboratory accreditation system that quietly protects our everyday safety. With nearly five decades of experience, Pete reveals how a problem with redundant product testing in the 1970s sparked an international movement that revolutionized how we ensure quality in construction materials and beyond.
The conversation unravels the fascinating evolution of laboratory standards from early negotiations between the US and Denmark to today's sophisticated global network. Pete, who helped write the original ISO Guide 25 (predecessor to ISO/IEC 17025) and chaired ILAC for nine years, shares insider perspectives on how these systems developed and why they matter. His firsthand accounts of international diplomacy and standards development provide rare insights into a system most people never think about.
What makes this discussion particularly compelling is Pete's candid explanation of how accreditation prevents dangerous practices. He recounts troubling examples of laboratories that would test just one concrete cylinder but report values for three - shortcuts that could lead to catastrophic structural failures. These stories highlight the real-world importance of proper testing oversight, especially in construction where lives depend on accurate results.
The episode also demystifies complex topics like Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) and Multilateral Agreements (MLAs), explaining how they facilitate international trade while maintaining quality standards. Pete's work with organizations like the Canadian Lumber Standards Accreditation Board demonstrates how these agreements eliminate redundant testing of products crossing borders, saving money without compromising safety.
Whether you work in quality assurance, construction, international trade, or simply care about the safety of the buildings and bridges you use daily, this conversation offers valuable perspective on the hidden systems that protect public safety. As Pete emphasizes, accreditation isn't about bureaucracy – it's about ensuring that when test results matter, they're reliable every time.
Have questions, comments, or want to be a guest on an upcoming episode? Email podcast@aashtoresource.org.
Related information on this and other episodes can be found at aashtoresource.org.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to AASHTO Resource Q&A.
We're taking time to discussconstruction materials, testing
and inspection with people inthe know.
From exploring testing problemsand solutions to laboratory
best practices and qualitymanagement, we're covering
topics important to you.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to AASHTO Resource Q&A.
I'm Brian Johnson.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And I'm Kim Swanson and we are here with Pete Unger.
Brian, do you want to give hima little intro?
I think you know him betterthan I do.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, so I met Pete years ago at an ASTM meeting and
well, several ASTM meetings inCommittee E36, which handles a
lot of the quality managementsystem requirements,
particularly around ASTM E329requirements, particularly
(00:50):
around ASTM E329, and also hashandled the adoption of ISO
standards, and Pete's going toprobably clarify that a little
bit here.
But Pete is currently withInternational Quality Excellence
in Infrastructure Systems LLP,which I also want to ask you
about.
Pete, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thank you very much, brian.
It's a pleasure to have theopportunity to talk about my
history in the business ofaccreditation and where we
emerged the quality managementsystem, standards and
requirements for accreditationof laboratories.
I started actually in thebusiness of accreditation In
(01:32):
1976, joining as assistantcoordinator of the National
Voluntary LaboratoryAccreditation Program, which was
originally lodged in theCommerce Department but moved
out to MBS, which is now NIST.
And during that time the DeputyAssistant Secretary for
(01:54):
Commerce was negotiating withdifferent countries in Denmark
about the cross-borderacceptance of test data and they
had started a conference in1976, which turned out to be the
International LaboratoryAccreditation Conference, which
then got turned into acooperation ILAC.
(02:15):
At that time, I think thesecond year, 1978, we hosted it
in Washington DC and I was thegopher going back and forth,
passing notes back and forth aswe negotiated.
What was the next thateverybody agreed around the
table was the best way to assurethat you're competent
(02:52):
Laboratories and laboratory data.
You could get confidence in thedata coming from accredited
labs.
So we approached ISO and thatwas rather than ASTM, and
although we did make an attemptto offer ASTM as the place to do
the standardization and becauseASTM had already done work I
(03:17):
mean E548 and your favoritestandard has been around forever
.
In fact it's maybe probably oneof the first ones.
Anyway, e548, some of the textwas actually offered to develop
(03:41):
Guide 25.
And I got involved withactually sitting on the
committees to write the damnthing.
John Locke was my boss at thetime at Nevlap allowed me to do
all this travel to help go toGeneva to help write the
original guide and the standards.
(04:01):
And I've been involved eversince the original guide and the
standards.
And I've been involved eversince we also hosted NAVLAP and
A2LA when I joined A2LA in 1985.
We ended up helping to developthe peer evaluation process for
(04:28):
recognition accreditation bodiesfor the purpose of identifying
appropriate accreditations oflaboratories that were offering
test data on exported products.
Basically, I've been involvedfrom that ever, from the get-go,
chairing the Mutual RecognitionCommittee of ILAC, working with
(04:51):
the Asia Pacific, chairing that.
I actually, long ago I was chairof ASTME 36.
And part of what I did at ASTMEE36 was to encourage the
adoption of the ISO standards,iso guides, as US standards and
(05:14):
E36 was the committee to do thatprocess to support an ANSI
designation as a standard, usANSI standard, an ANSI
designation as a standard, USANSI standard and I ultimately
ended up chairing ILAC for threeterms, about nine years.
So I've been involved in theeffort, forever Retired from A
(05:40):
to LA 10 years ago.
I've been consulting ever since, working with various
accreditation bodies,laboratories, certification
bodies to help them meet theISIS standards and get qualified
for accreditation.
And in the case ofaccreditation bodies, I've of
(06:02):
late been doing internal auditsof accreditation bodies Mexican
body, canadian body, a couple ofUS bodies.
So that's what's keeping mebusy.
I've also done peer evaluationsof accreditation bodies for the
Inter-American AccreditationCooperation and the
(06:24):
Asia-PacAmerican AccreditationCooperation and the Asia-Pacific
Accreditation Cooperation.
I've been slowing down now sinceI've reached the ripe young age
of 75.
Cut back on my travel.
I like to work a little bitmore locally and remotely.
Actually, I've done a fewthings remotely.
(06:46):
My most recent on-site effortwas last December in Saudi
Arabia, no less.
So I ended up training aspiringlead assessors for the Gulf
Accreditation Cooperation, leadassessors for 17,025, the
(07:10):
laboratory criteria document.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Was that an ASQ lead auditor certification, or was
that?
Just the auditor training thatyou conduct.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I don't do the 9001 certification stuff.
No, in fact, accreditationbodies don't necessarily buy
into that at all.
That's usually relegated tolead auditors of the quality
management system standards, notthe accreditation competence
(07:40):
standards competence standards,at least.
Accreditation bodies haveresisted actually having to
require everybody to becertified.
I stood strongly against thatconcept, even though when ISO
9001 first came out in 1985, Imade an effort to become trained
(08:02):
and certified as a 9001 leadutterer.
I made an effort to becometrained and certified as a 9001
lead auditor on the originalstandard.
The standard 9001 has radicallychanged and I haven't really
kept up with it.
And I didn't keep up thecertification because I was not
(08:25):
doing ISA 9001 certificationaudits.
There is, I believe if you makean effort to be certified, you
really have to demonstrateexperience in actually applying
9001 or any of the othercertification management system
certification requirements.
Doing 70,025 assessments I don'tknow whether they're actually
(08:49):
counting that although what iscounted is 70,025 is treated as
equivalent to 9,001.
So laboratories who getaccredited at 70,025 can say to
their customers if the customeris saying you need to be 9001
certified, which we, you know,adamantly object to, those
(09:13):
customers say that there is astatement from ISO that
basically endorses the fact thatif you're credited to 70,025,
it's equivalent to ISO 9000certification.
Very important so labs don'thave to go through the nonsense
of getting certified in 9001 andcan rely on their accreditation
(09:36):
as the number one way todemonstrate that I'm competent
to provide decent results to mycustomers.
And I think that's held, and Ibelieve internationally the
demand for 9001 certification oflaboratories is really
(09:57):
diminishing, going away.
Although I haven't beeninvolved with laboratories
accreditation for a long time, Ithink that's the case, brian.
I believe that's the case foryou.
You see people that are.
Some people are saying well, weneed 9,001.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I have never had anybody ask me that question,
one time.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Okay, well, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I think you are correct.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
It did happen in the early 90s, of course that's okay
.
I think you are correct.
It did happen in the early 90s.
Of course that's a long timeago.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Right, yeah, things were not fully resolved in that
area at that point, I imagine.
I want to go back to kind ofthe beginning of the story, when
you were formulating all ofthese policies and being
involved in the very beginningin the mid-70s the meeting you
said the US and Denmark wereworking on this together.
(10:52):
Was there a particular productor material, or was there a
problem that was being solved atthat point, a specific problem
that Denmark and the US weretrying to resolve, or was it a
general issue?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I think it was clear that US exporters were very
demanding of you know why do wehave to test the product twice?
We test the product forEuropean standards in the United
States and we send it to Europeand they test it again.
It's a cost, an unnecessarycost.
(11:31):
We need to facilitateacceptance of test data.
And how do we do that?
In the mid-'70s they said we'ddo it through accreditation.
That's one of the reasons whyNABLAB got started.
It was the first nationalsystem created in the United
States.
What NABLAB did not do,unfortunately, is develop a
(11:56):
broad-based accreditation schemefor all types of laboratories,
all types of laboratories.
It started out with you knowwhat do we start out with?
Carpeting testing, thermalinsulation, concrete and it just
simply was too arduous.
And our US lab community andsome industry groups supported
(12:22):
the creation of AmericanAssociation for Laboratory
Accreditation when we createdA2LA.
Obviously the point was toallow all kinds of laboratories
to get accredited and get theirdata accepted overseas.
That was the primary purposeinitially of A2LA.
Then it started to morph intothe automotive industry decided
(12:47):
well, you know, we need to havea system for assuring the
competence of our supplierlaboratory network.
So General Motors really droveA2LA in the late 80s big time
because they started requiring atool accreditation of all their
supplier network, whichincluded not just the United
(13:10):
States but overseas folks.
So we had a need to cooperateinternationally.
Early on, when we tried to getrecognized in Europe, they came
over and did a peer evaluationof us and said you know what?
We can't accept you because youhaven't authenticated the
(13:31):
traceability, you don't accreditcalibration laboratories.
We as A2LA were not reallywidely accepted by the
calibration community.
When we go to the NationalCorporation for Standards
Laboratories I guess NCSL theysaid government should be doing
it.
Okay, let's get NIST, getNavLab started.
(13:55):
And that's finally happened.
And a few years later we didget accepted under the fact that
NIST, navlab started and wewere also accrediting Cal Labs.
So we were able to demonstrateauthenticate traceability for
Europe and we did have a coupleof bilateral recognition.
(14:16):
And then of course ILAC camealong and said you know that's
crazy, all these bilaterals,that's ridiculous.
We need to have a multilateralagreement.
Everybody's duplicating theevaluations of everybody else.
Multilateral agreement,everybody's duplicating the
evaluations of everybody else.
In fact when I started, johnLocke supported me to do these
(14:39):
bilateral evaluations and so Igot a lot of experience running
around evaluating otheraccreditation bodies and it got
me started in developing thepeer evaluation process.
It's a fundamental role of ILACand IF and the new GLOBAC.
The primary purpose for havingthis cooperation is to recognize
each other as providingacceptable accreditations, and
(15:00):
Europe started the firstcooperation and then we had the
Asia Pacific starting the secondone and we had a bilateral and
then the region started todevelop the Inter-American
Accreditation Cooperation, whichI supported.
We also supported ANACLA andNorth American, which actually
(15:23):
wasn't workable because thereweren't enough countries
involved.
It wasn't workable becausethere weren't enough countries
involved and so I supported theInter-American Accreditation
Cooperation.
Atla had the first bilateralagreement in APLAC Asia Pacific
Laboratory AccreditationCooperation, which they merged
(15:44):
and integrated the accreditationbodies that are doing
certification accreditationbodies that are doing
certification accreditation, andso now we're having ILAC and
IAF merging and it's going to beGLOBAC Okay so IAF New Zealand,
ilac Netherlands, they'reforming GLOBAC, they're forming
(16:06):
glow back we did last March,actually, no, 15 months ago the
World Trade Organization'sTechnical Barriers Trade
Committee actually published,finally, guidance on conformity
assessment policy and proceduresand requirements that
(16:26):
governments may place.
They recognized the ILAC andIFMOA.
That was something as ILACchair I spent.
I went to three different TBTcommittee meetings promoting
that concept.
The World Trade TBT Agreementactually recognizes
(16:49):
accreditation as a mechanism tofacilitate trade.
But what they didn't do untilthis guidance was to say what is
an acceptable accreditation.
So they have put in this WTOguidance onformity Assessment
Policy and Procedures, use theILAC and IF MLAs as a means for
(17:19):
recognizing competentaccreditation.
That to me actually was mynumber one international
achievement because I pushedthat big time and pushed it with
the US government, which hasadopted it for quite a while.
(17:41):
We do have some US governmentagencies that are recognizing
the ILOC MRA, epa, fda, cpsc andUS Coast Guard and let's see
the General ServicesAdministration, I believe, has
used it.
Anyway, all of that stuff welobbied long ago to get that
done in the US.
When we go to other countries,very little effort is made by
(18:03):
these countries to get the MLAaccepted, countries to get the
MLA accepted.
Ea's peer evaluation processneglects it big time, and I was
involved in evaluating EA a longtime ago.
In fact, the first step theycould care less about promoting
(18:27):
the international agreements.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
They promote the European agreements.
So, Pete, you mentioned MRA andMLA.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
What are those?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
That's mutual recognition agreement.
What's MLA?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Yeah, I'm sorry, multilateral agreement.
The IAF decided to use theacronym or multilateral
agreement.
To use the acronym ormultilateral agreement partly
because MRA has been used bygovernments mutual recognition
(19:00):
arrangements used by governmentsILAC in its early years, in
effect, apac insisted that MRAwas not necessarily a
government-to-government, it wasaccreditation by accreditation
(19:21):
we're recognizing each other andwe promote the acceptance of
equivalence of theiraccreditation.
That still has persisted inILAC.
Now what Globex does?
I suspect they might resort tojust promoting MLA instead of
MRA.
One of the reasons.
(19:41):
The other reason why IAF was notliking the MRA process, because
I think and this is somespeculation but product
certification bodies who havetheir own requirements for the
product, such as UL, can't notreally recognize another product
(20:08):
certification body.
That's not using the ULstandard as equivalent.
So in other words, unlikelaboratory accreditation where
if you're running the exact sametest, you can recognize each
other's test results, if it's anASTM test, yeah okay.
(20:30):
An ISA test and they'reaccredited for it, yeah okay,
the result that comes out, youcan accept it as equivalent.
But a product certificationbased on different standard or
different specification for theproduct doesn't.
(20:50):
There is no mutual recognition.
So they say mutual multilateralarrangement, mla rather than
MRA.
I think that's the genesis ofwhy they adopted MLA.
Iaf the InternationalAccreditation Form deal with
(21:15):
accreditation of certificationbodies and their first effort
was the ISA 9000 certificationswhen they integrated product
certification no-transcript, sobecause of the different product
(21:42):
standards.
Anyway, I think that's thereason why MRA is not used by IF
and I suspect Glowback, whenthey actually get everything
merged and ILF and ILAC actuallygo away, they probably will
adopt MLA as a less and it'sdifferent than the government
(22:06):
MRAs.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
So you mentioned the TBT.
I remember years ago looking atthe TBT and not seeing really
anything as a minimumexpectation.
Just correct me if I'm wrong.
Did it before it had the ILACMRA in it?
(22:34):
It was based on whatever theminimum expectation was from the
two parties involved in trade.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Actually the TBT agreement, among other things,
really encourages the minimum interms of conformity assessment
requirements.
Ideally, it's a rely onmanufacturers' declaration of
conformity, Self-declaration ofconformity that's the least
onerous requirement.
My limited experience in hearingfrom countries that decide they
(23:07):
need third-party certification,or some more stringent
technical barrier, if you will.
When the marketplace startscomplaining about these
unacceptable products, theyforce the governments into
writing requirements forcertification, accreditation,
(23:31):
retesting inspection.
In particular, those regulatorybodies have conformity
assessment requirements, whichcould be considered technical
barriers.
They're justified barriersbecause if they're consumer
(23:53):
products food particularly, geezyou don't want to have products
that will poison and killpeople.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
And in our industry, construction materials, cement
is a big issue, right?
You don't know what you'regetting in the port.
You know testing has to beconducted before it goes into
use, because you don't know ifyou're getting cement or some
other product in these bags, oror loosely, uh, cast in the hull
of a ship or whatever.
(24:19):
Whatever, however, it'stransported over here.
So there is a need for someoversight and testing once it
makes a big journey.
You know especially and I can,I can kind of understand that
about Europe how they would liketo.
You know they feel comfortablewithin the confines of their
continent with what's going on,but maybe are not so about
(24:40):
something making a longerjourney or coming from a place
where they have less stringentrules.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
You remind me I am helping out the Canadian Lumber
Standards Accreditation Board,CLSAB.
They accredit a dozencertification bodies that rate,
determine the quality of lumber.
They export a whole bunch oflumber to the United States and
(25:09):
overseas to Australia, Japan,countries that are tree
deficient.
They have been not forced butencouraged to get their
accreditation internationallyrecognized so that the
accreditation of thecertification bodies and their
data and the stuff that goesalong with the labels on the
(25:31):
lumber can be automaticallyaccepted in Japan and Taiwan and
Australia and, for that matter,the United States.
They can have some confidencethat the Canadian Lumber
Standards Accreditation Board,accreditation of the
certification bodies that dothis, we can have confidence and
(25:56):
acceptance and we don't have tore-inspect the whole load of
lumber that comes in Veryexpensive process to do it on
import and that clearly there'sa number of other products like
that.
I think and you point out,cement Perfect, there's a,
there's, I'm sure there's otherproducts that we import where we
(26:17):
want to have confidence thatthe testing and these
certification has been doneproperly.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
For your work with the lumber industry.
What is the effort to buildthat confidence with the
importer, the importing country?
You know what's the mainobjective.
You know you're brought intowork.
How do you make?
Is it a relationship thing?
Is it more inspections?
Is it what happens?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
I think there's confidence building that's done
among the.
Certainly the Canadian LumberStandards Accreditation Board
does a lot of internationalnegotiations and work.
They share the standards, theyshare what's going on.
They've just recently been peerevaluated by the Inter-American
(27:04):
Accreditation Cooperation andthey were hoping in August they
will be a signatory to the IEFagreement for accreditation of
product certifiers.
Very narrow, of course they'reonly dealing with people that
certify lumber.
They've gone through theprocess.
They've trained their folks.
They've gone through theprocess.
They've trained their folks,they've trained their
(27:26):
certification bodies.
And then, of course, thecertification bodies are going
to be checked out by theaccreditation body to see
whether or not you didunderstand 70,065 and how you're
supposed to go about doing thecertification of lumber.
There's need for cooperation,whether or not it's from
accreditation or face-to-facethe regulators of um.
(27:50):
You know that the building codeauthorities talk to each other.
I I'm pretty sure that it wasicc in the united states,
international code councilnegotiates with the Canadian
counterparts about how should we?
You know what are thespecifications and requirements
(28:14):
for certain types of lumber thatare usable for building or
whatever plywood building orwhatever plywood.
They can do this withoutaccreditation for the united
states because there's a lot ofconfidence between the united
states and canada on the guard.
But when you're shipping theselumber across the pacific to
(28:39):
japan in particular, japan waspretty demanding, I guess, is
what the word is as well asAustralia.
You know your accreditation.
You know, do you meet thisinternational standard for
accreditation?
(29:00):
Well, he can't say that he doesuntil he gets this peer
evaluation.
The decision should be made inAugust in the Dominican Republic
and then they would beautomatically accepted by IAF,
because the IAC's peerevaluation process is accepted
(29:25):
at IAF.
Anyway, that's where we're atwith, where accreditation has a
role.
Some countries use it, manycountries don't, but I think
it's growing, particularly inAsia.
It's growing.
It's growing particularly inAsia.
(29:49):
It's growing.
There's a lot more recognitionof accreditation as an integral
part of quality infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
We've talked about the impact accreditation has on
the larger you know macro level.
Let's turn it the other way fora second and let's talk about
the impact accreditation has onindividual laboratories and
quality of testing.
You know you've been involvedwith accreditation for a long
time, so how do you see theimpact that accreditation has on
(30:16):
the quality of the testinglaboratory itself?
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Well, I have to be biased about this, Of course, as
am I they're doing.
If they are assessed andthere's found to be deficiencies
(30:45):
in the processing requirementsor the actual following the test
methods gosh damn thenaccreditation helps the lab to
make sure they are not cuttingcorners.
I've seen results in concretetesting labs early, early on,
(31:05):
where assessors would find thatlabs would be faking.
They take the three cylindersand only test one and then make
up the numbers for the other twoand don't actually break the
other two, and of course that'svery serious.
If they do that, theiraccreditation is really suspect.
(31:26):
So I think accreditationdefinitely encourages people to
do the right thing and beingvery serious about whatever is
required in the process of thetest follow the test, Don't cut
corners, Don't try to get thejob over quickly.
That is unacceptable and causespossible erroneous results that
(31:55):
get reported to the client andthen things happen in a very bad
way possibly.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
You know we were in a low bid environment.
You know we were in a low bidenvironment and if people are
(32:27):
not careful about who they awardthese contracts to, you're
going to have more problems.
But yeah, I agree with what yousaid An unaccredited laboratory
can be as good as an accreditedlaboratory, but you don't know.
You don't know.
There's no accountability,there's no.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Third, party objective evaluation.
So so, while it, is possible.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
We have not.
We haven't found a whole lot oflaboratories come into our
program that are not accredited.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
That find it to be an easy process.
Yeah, that gives me someconfidence that the
accreditation process has somevalue.
Yeah, and when they sit downand say, well, document, what's
our policy, what are ourobjectives, what?
What are the processes we needto follow to make sure we're
providing consistently good data?
How do we treat our people?
You know it does.
It provides some discipline,right, and and we haven't had
(33:02):
any recent disasters in thisarea, frankly, and so things are
being done professionallybetter, clearly.
So I'm very happy to sayaccreditation is very valuable
for the labs themselves andtheir customers.
I mean, ultimately, thecustomers have to make decisions
(33:27):
based on test data and if thetest data is wrong, it can cause
possibly mistakes, includingdeaths, and that's particularly
(33:50):
why accreditation is valuablefor the life and death tests and
certifications.
So, anyway, that's my opinionand I think the laboratories who
get accredited feel morecomfortable, feel more
(34:21):
comfortable.
They get very proud thatthey've accomplished something
that may not be as easy as somepeople suggest.
It's not necessarily easygetting accredited and certain
(34:44):
kind of testing is maybe moredifficult than others.
I know most, actually, becauseof the development of concrete
and thermal insulation.
Construction materials testingis probably I'm most familiar
with, but also environmentaltesting, food testing,
(35:05):
calibration or other areas whereI've gone out and at least
witnessed assessments.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Accreditation covers all kinds of different topics,
right.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Your accreditation is particularly important to make
sure that building products, thebuildings themselves, roadwork
bridges are actually not goingto fail with people in them or
people on them, and that's ahuge, huge deal, Huge deal.
(35:37):
So I greatly respect the AASHTOeffort to accredit all the
laboratories that are in thisbusiness, whether it's in the
United States or maybe they havesome clients internationally.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Right, I appreciate that and we do.
It's funny because you know youhave some people who are really
skeptical or jaded and say, oh,you're just trying to make more
money or have more customers.
It's like that is never theobjective.
I mean we want more oversight,we want more assurance that what
is being paved or being putinto a structure is what it is
(36:19):
supposed to be and to protectthe public interest.
And that's about it supposed tobe and to protect the public
interest, and that's about it.
I mean, if it's 2,000 labs, ifit's 1,000 labs, if it's 500
labs, whatever it is, we justwant to make sure it's done
properly and I think we've madesome improvements.
And it is hard telling,especially some of the things
that you mentioned the cases offraud, misrepresentation of
(36:43):
information, taking shortcutsthat stuff can be really hard to
determine in a short visit.
But we certainly do try toidentify those things when we
can and take action.
And I think that's hard for allaccrediting bodies to be able to
take action that they need totake, especially in a
competitive environment wherethey could go to a lower quality
(37:05):
alternative, if there isn'tsome kind of you know back to
your ILAC recognition, if thereisn't some kind of assurance of
consistency, it can be reallydifficult for people.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Leveling the playing field.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
So that competition among laboratories is fair and
that everybody has to live up tothe same standard.
To me is the justification forwhat you guys are doing and why
accreditation is valuable levelsthe playing field absolutely
well, pete.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Thank you so much for your time.
One last thing I'd like you toto give you an opportunity to
just tell people how to reachout to you if they are
interested in hiring you as aconsultant.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
You can search the website iqeiscom I-Q-E-I-S dot
com.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
So we'll have a link to your website for sure, and
email so people can reach out toyou.
Thank you for your time today,pete.
I know you've got a today, pete.
I know you've got a lot goingon, so I appreciate the history
lesson.
This was really fascinating forme as an accrediting body
director.
To hear the background of howall these things developed was
(38:19):
really interesting.
So thanks for sharing your timeand expertise with us today.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Thanks, Brian, Thanks .
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Kim, thanks for listening to AASHTO Resource Q&A
.
If you'd like to be a guest orjust submit a question, send us
an email at podcast atAASHTOresourceorg, or call Brian
at 240-436-4820.
For other news and relatedcontent, check out AASHTO
Resources' social media accountsor go to ashtoresourceorg.
Welcome to AASHTO Resource Q&A.
We're taking time to discussconstruction materials, testing
and inspection with people inthe know.
From exploring testing problemsand solutions to laboratory
best practices and qualitymanagement, we're covering
topics important to you.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to AASHTO Resource Q&A.
I'm Brian Johnson.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And I'm Kim Swanson and we are here with Pete Unger.
Brian, do you want to give hima little intro?
I think you know him betterthan I do.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, so I met Pete years ago at an ASTM meeting and
well, several ASTM meetings inCommittee E36, which handles a
lot of the quality managementsystem requirements,
particularly around ASTM E329requirements, particularly
(00:50):
around ASTM E329, and also hashandled the adoption of ISO
standards, and Pete's going toprobably clarify that a little
bit here.
But Pete is currently withInternational Quality Excellence
in Infrastructure Systems LLP,which I also want to ask you
about.
Pete, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thank you very much, brian.
It's a pleasure to have theopportunity to talk about my
history in the business ofaccreditation and where we
emerged the quality managementsystem, standards and
requirements for accreditationof laboratories.
I started actually in thebusiness of accreditation In
(01:32):
1976, joining as assistantcoordinator of the National
Voluntary LaboratoryAccreditation Program, which was
originally lodged in theCommerce Department but moved
out to MBS, which is now NIST.
And during that time the DeputyAssistant Secretary for
(01:54):
Commerce was negotiating withdifferent countries in Denmark
about the cross-borderacceptance of test data and they
had started a conference in1976, which turned out to be the
International LaboratoryAccreditation Conference, which
then got turned into acooperation ILAC.
(02:15):
At that time, I think thesecond year, 1978, we hosted it
in Washington DC and I was thegopher going back and forth,
passing notes back and forth aswe negotiated.
What was the next thateverybody agreed around the
table was the best way to assurethat you're competent
(02:52):
Laboratories and laboratory data.
You could get confidence in thedata coming from accredited
labs.
So we approached ISO and thatwas rather than ASTM, and
although we did make an attemptto offer ASTM as the place to do
the standardization and becauseASTM had already done work I
(03:17):
mean E548 and your favoritestandard has been around forever
.
In fact it's maybe probably oneof the first ones.
Anyway, e548, some of the textwas actually offered to develop
(03:41):
Guide 25.
And I got involved withactually sitting on the
committees to write the damnthing.
John Locke was my boss at thetime at Nevlap allowed me to do
all this travel to help go toGeneva to help write the
original guide and the standards.
(04:01):
And I've been involved eversince the original guide and the
standards.
And I've been involved eversince we also hosted NAVLAP and
A2LA when I joined A2LA in 1985.
We ended up helping to developthe peer evaluation process for
(04:28):
recognition accreditation bodiesfor the purpose of identifying
appropriate accreditations oflaboratories that were offering
test data on exported products.
Basically, I've been involvedfrom that ever, from the get-go,
chairing the Mutual RecognitionCommittee of ILAC, working with
(04:51):
the Asia Pacific, chairing that.
I actually, long ago I was chairof ASTME 36.
And part of what I did at ASTMEE36 was to encourage the
adoption of the ISO standards,iso guides, as US standards and
(05:14):
E36 was the committee to do thatprocess to support an ANSI
designation as a standard, usANSI standard, an ANSI
designation as a standard, USANSI standard and I ultimately
ended up chairing ILAC for threeterms, about nine years.
So I've been involved in theeffort, forever Retired from A
(05:40):
to LA 10 years ago.
I've been consulting ever since, working with various
accreditation bodies,laboratories, certification
bodies to help them meet theISIS standards and get qualified
for accreditation.
And in the case ofaccreditation bodies, I've of
(06:02):
late been doing internal auditsof accreditation bodies Mexican
body, canadian body, a couple ofUS bodies.
So that's what's keeping mebusy.
I've also done peer evaluationsof accreditation bodies for the
Inter-American AccreditationCooperation and the
(06:24):
Asia-PacAmerican AccreditationCooperation and the Asia-Pacific
Accreditation Cooperation.
I've been slowing down now sinceI've reached the ripe young age
of 75.
Cut back on my travel.
I like to work a little bitmore locally and remotely.
Actually, I've done a fewthings remotely.
(06:46):
My most recent on-site effortwas last December in Saudi
Arabia, no less.
So I ended up training aspiringlead assessors for the Gulf
Accreditation Cooperation, leadassessors for 17,025, the
(07:10):
laboratory criteria document.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Was that an ASQ lead auditor certification, or was
that?
Just the auditor training thatyou conduct.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I don't do the 9001 certification stuff.
No, in fact, accreditationbodies don't necessarily buy
into that at all.
That's usually relegated tolead auditors of the quality
management system standards, notthe accreditation competence
(07:40):
standards competence standards,at least.
Accreditation bodies haveresisted actually having to
require everybody to becertified.
I stood strongly against thatconcept, even though when ISO
9001 first came out in 1985, Imade an effort to become trained
(08:02):
and certified as a 9001 leadutterer.
I made an effort to becometrained and certified as a 9001
lead auditor on the originalstandard.
The standard 9001 has radicallychanged and I haven't really
kept up with it.
And I didn't keep up thecertification because I was not
(08:25):
doing ISA 9001 certificationaudits.
There is, I believe if you makean effort to be certified, you
really have to demonstrateexperience in actually applying
9001 or any of the othercertification management system
certification requirements.
Doing 70,025 assessments I don'tknow whether they're actually
(08:49):
counting that although what iscounted is 70,025 is treated as
equivalent to 9,001.
So laboratories who getaccredited at 70,025 can say to
their customers if the customeris saying you need to be 9001
certified, which we, you know,adamantly object to, those
(09:13):
customers say that there is astatement from ISO that
basically endorses the fact thatif you're credited to 70,025,
it's equivalent to ISO 9000certification.
Very important so labs don'thave to go through the nonsense
of getting certified in 9001 andcan rely on their accreditation
(09:36):
as the number one way todemonstrate that I'm competent
to provide decent results to mycustomers.
And I think that's held, and Ibelieve internationally the
demand for 9001 certification oflaboratories is really
(09:57):
diminishing, going away.
Although I haven't beeninvolved with laboratories
accreditation for a long time, Ithink that's the case, brian.
I believe that's the case foryou.
You see people that are.
Some people are saying well, weneed 9,001.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I have never had anybody ask me that question,
one time.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Okay, well, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I think you are correct.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
It did happen in the early 90s, of course that's okay
.
I think you are correct.
It did happen in the early 90s.
Of course that's a long timeago.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Right, yeah, things were not fully resolved in that
area at that point, I imagine.
I want to go back to kind ofthe beginning of the story, when
you were formulating all ofthese policies and being
involved in the very beginningin the mid-70s the meeting you
said the US and Denmark wereworking on this together.
(10:52):
Was there a particular productor material, or was there a
problem that was being solved atthat point, a specific problem
that Denmark and the US weretrying to resolve, or was it a
general issue?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I think it was clear that US exporters were very
demanding of you know why do wehave to test the product twice?
We test the product forEuropean standards in the United
States and we send it to Europeand they test it again.
It's a cost, an unnecessarycost.
(11:31):
We need to facilitateacceptance of test data.
And how do we do that?
In the mid-'70s they said we'ddo it through accreditation.
That's one of the reasons whyNABLAB got started.
It was the first nationalsystem created in the United
States.
What NABLAB did not do,unfortunately, is develop a
(11:56):
broad-based accreditation schemefor all types of laboratories,
all types of laboratories.
It started out with you knowwhat do we start out with?
Carpeting testing, thermalinsulation, concrete and it just
simply was too arduous.
And our US lab community andsome industry groups supported
(12:22):
the creation of AmericanAssociation for Laboratory
Accreditation when we createdA2LA.
Obviously the point was toallow all kinds of laboratories
to get accredited and get theirdata accepted overseas.
That was the primary purposeinitially of A2LA.
Then it started to morph intothe automotive industry decided
(12:47):
well, you know, we need to havea system for assuring the
competence of our supplierlaboratory network.
So General Motors really droveA2LA in the late 80s big time
because they started requiring atool accreditation of all their
supplier network, whichincluded not just the United
(13:10):
States but overseas folks.
So we had a need to cooperateinternationally.
Early on, when we tried to getrecognized in Europe, they came
over and did a peer evaluationof us and said you know what?
We can't accept you because youhaven't authenticated the
(13:31):
traceability, you don't accreditcalibration laboratories.
We as A2LA were not reallywidely accepted by the
calibration community.
When we go to the NationalCorporation for Standards
Laboratories I guess NCSL theysaid government should be doing
it.
Okay, let's get NIST, getNavLab started.
(13:55):
And that's finally happened.
And a few years later we didget accepted under the fact that
NIST, navlab started and wewere also accrediting Cal Labs.
So we were able to demonstrateauthenticate traceability for
Europe and we did have a coupleof bilateral recognition.
(14:16):
And then of course ILAC camealong and said you know that's
crazy, all these bilaterals,that's ridiculous.
We need to have a multilateralagreement.
Everybody's duplicating theevaluations of everybody else.
Multilateral agreement,everybody's duplicating the
evaluations of everybody else.
In fact when I started, johnLocke supported me to do these
(14:39):
bilateral evaluations and so Igot a lot of experience running
around evaluating otheraccreditation bodies and it got
me started in developing thepeer evaluation process.
It's a fundamental role of ILACand IF and the new GLOBAC.
The primary purpose for havingthis cooperation is to recognize
each other as providingacceptable accreditations, and
(15:00):
Europe started the firstcooperation and then we had the
Asia Pacific starting the secondone and we had a bilateral and
then the region started todevelop the Inter-American
Accreditation Cooperation, whichI supported.
We also supported ANACLA andNorth American, which actually
(15:23):
wasn't workable because thereweren't enough countries
involved.
It wasn't workable becausethere weren't enough countries
involved and so I supported theInter-American Accreditation
Cooperation.
Atla had the first bilateralagreement in APLAC Asia Pacific
Laboratory AccreditationCooperation, which they merged
(15:44):
and integrated the accreditationbodies that are doing
certification accreditationbodies that are doing
certification accreditation, andso now we're having ILAC and
IAF merging and it's going to beGLOBAC Okay so IAF New Zealand,
ilac Netherlands, they'reforming GLOBAC, they're forming
(16:06):
glow back we did last March,actually, no, 15 months ago the
World Trade Organization'sTechnical Barriers Trade
Committee actually published,finally, guidance on conformity
assessment policy and proceduresand requirements that
(16:26):
governments may place.
They recognized the ILAC andIFMOA.
That was something as ILACchair I spent.
I went to three different TBTcommittee meetings promoting
that concept.
The World Trade TBT Agreementactually recognizes
(16:49):
accreditation as a mechanism tofacilitate trade.
But what they didn't do untilthis guidance was to say what is
an acceptable accreditation.
So they have put in this WTOguidance onformity Assessment
Policy and Procedures, use theILAC and IF MLAs as a means for
(17:19):
recognizing competentaccreditation.
That to me actually was mynumber one international
achievement because I pushedthat big time and pushed it with
the US government, which hasadopted it for quite a while.
(17:41):
We do have some US governmentagencies that are recognizing
the ILOC MRA, epa, fda, cpsc andUS Coast Guard and let's see
the General ServicesAdministration, I believe, has
used it.
Anyway, all of that stuff welobbied long ago to get that
done in the US.
When we go to other countries,very little effort is made by
(18:03):
these countries to get the MLAaccepted, countries to get the
MLA accepted.
Ea's peer evaluation processneglects it big time, and I was
involved in evaluating EA a longtime ago.
In fact, the first step theycould care less about promoting
(18:27):
the international agreements.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
They promote the European agreements.
So, Pete, you mentioned MRA andMLA.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
What are those?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
That's mutual recognition agreement.
What's MLA?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Yeah, I'm sorry, multilateral agreement.
The IAF decided to use theacronym or multilateral
agreement.
To use the acronym ormultilateral agreement partly
because MRA has been used bygovernments mutual recognition
(19:00):
arrangements used by governmentsILAC in its early years, in
effect, apac insisted that MRAwas not necessarily a
government-to-government, it wasaccreditation by accreditation
(19:21):
we're recognizing each other andwe promote the acceptance of
equivalence of theiraccreditation.
That still has persisted inILAC.
Now what Globex does?
I suspect they might resort tojust promoting MLA instead of
MRA.
One of the reasons.
(19:41):
The other reason why IAF was notliking the MRA process, because
I think and this is somespeculation but product
certification bodies who havetheir own requirements for the
product, such as UL, can't notreally recognize another product
(20:08):
certification body.
That's not using the ULstandard as equivalent.
So in other words, unlikelaboratory accreditation where
if you're running the exact sametest, you can recognize each
other's test results, if it's anASTM test, yeah okay.
(20:30):
An ISA test and they'reaccredited for it, yeah okay,
the result that comes out, youcan accept it as equivalent.
But a product certificationbased on different standard or
different specification for theproduct doesn't.
(20:50):
There is no mutual recognition.
So they say mutual multilateralarrangement, mla rather than
MRA.
I think that's the genesis ofwhy they adopted MLA.
Iaf the InternationalAccreditation Form deal with
(21:15):
accreditation of certificationbodies and their first effort
was the ISA 9000 certificationswhen they integrated product
certification no-transcript, sobecause of the different product
(21:42):
standards.
Anyway, I think that's thereason why MRA is not used by IF
and I suspect Glowback, whenthey actually get everything
merged and ILF and ILAC actuallygo away, they probably will
adopt MLA as a less and it'sdifferent than the government
(22:06):
MRAs.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
So you mentioned the TBT.
I remember years ago looking atthe TBT and not seeing really
anything as a minimumexpectation.
Just correct me if I'm wrong.
Did it before it had the ILACMRA in it?
(22:34):
It was based on whatever theminimum expectation was from the
two parties involved in trade.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Actually the TBT agreement, among other things,
really encourages the minimum interms of conformity assessment
requirements.
Ideally, it's a rely onmanufacturers' declaration of
conformity, Self-declaration ofconformity that's the least
onerous requirement.
My limited experience in hearingfrom countries that decide they
(23:07):
need third-party certification,or some more stringent
technical barrier, if you will.
When the marketplace startscomplaining about these
unacceptable products, theyforce the governments into
writing requirements forcertification, accreditation,
(23:31):
retesting inspection.
In particular, those regulatorybodies have conformity
assessment requirements, whichcould be considered technical
barriers.
They're justified barriersbecause if they're consumer
(23:53):
products food particularly, geezyou don't want to have products
that will poison and killpeople.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
And in our industry, construction materials, cement
is a big issue, right?
You don't know what you'regetting in the port.
You know testing has to beconducted before it goes into
use, because you don't know ifyou're getting cement or some
other product in these bags, oror loosely, uh, cast in the hull
of a ship or whatever.
(24:19):
Whatever, however, it'stransported over here.
So there is a need for someoversight and testing once it
makes a big journey.
You know especially and I can,I can kind of understand that
about Europe how they would liketo.
You know they feel comfortablewithin the confines of their
continent with what's going on,but maybe are not so about
(24:40):
something making a longerjourney or coming from a place
where they have less stringentrules.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
You remind me I am helping out the Canadian Lumber
Standards Accreditation Board,CLSAB.
They accredit a dozencertification bodies that rate,
determine the quality of lumber.
They export a whole bunch oflumber to the United States and
(25:09):
overseas to Australia, Japan,countries that are tree
deficient.
They have been not forced butencouraged to get their
accreditation internationallyrecognized so that the
accreditation of thecertification bodies and their
data and the stuff that goesalong with the labels on the
(25:31):
lumber can be automaticallyaccepted in Japan and Taiwan and
Australia and, for that matter,the United States.
They can have some confidencethat the Canadian Lumber
Standards Accreditation Board,accreditation of the
certification bodies that dothis, we can have confidence and
(25:56):
acceptance and we don't have tore-inspect the whole load of
lumber that comes in Veryexpensive process to do it on
import and that clearly there'sa number of other products like
that.
I think and you point out,cement Perfect, there's a,
there's, I'm sure there's otherproducts that we import where we
(26:17):
want to have confidence thatthe testing and these
certification has been doneproperly.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
For your work with the lumber industry.
What is the effort to buildthat confidence with the
importer, the importing country?
You know what's the mainobjective.
You know you're brought intowork.
How do you make?
Is it a relationship thing?
Is it more inspections?
Is it what happens?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
I think there's confidence building that's done
among the.
Certainly the Canadian LumberStandards Accreditation Board
does a lot of internationalnegotiations and work.
They share the standards, theyshare what's going on.
They've just recently been peerevaluated by the Inter-American
(27:04):
Accreditation Cooperation andthey were hoping in August they
will be a signatory to the IEFagreement for accreditation of
product certifiers.
Very narrow, of course they'reonly dealing with people that
certify lumber.
They've gone through theprocess.
They've trained their folks.
They've gone through theprocess.
They've trained their folks,they've trained their
(27:26):
certification bodies.
And then, of course, thecertification bodies are going
to be checked out by theaccreditation body to see
whether or not you didunderstand 70,065 and how you're
supposed to go about doing thecertification of lumber.
There's need for cooperation,whether or not it's from
accreditation or face-to-facethe regulators of um.
(27:50):
You know that the building codeauthorities talk to each other.
I I'm pretty sure that it wasicc in the united states,
international code councilnegotiates with the Canadian
counterparts about how should we?
You know what are thespecifications and requirements
(28:14):
for certain types of lumber thatare usable for building or
whatever plywood building orwhatever plywood.
They can do this withoutaccreditation for the united
states because there's a lot ofconfidence between the united
states and canada on the guard.
But when you're shipping theselumber across the pacific to
(28:39):
japan in particular, japan waspretty demanding, I guess, is
what the word is as well asAustralia.
You know your accreditation.
You know, do you meet thisinternational standard for
accreditation?
(29:00):
Well, he can't say that he doesuntil he gets this peer
evaluation.
The decision should be made inAugust in the Dominican Republic
and then they would beautomatically accepted by IAF,
because the IAC's peerevaluation process is accepted
(29:25):
at IAF.
Anyway, that's where we're atwith, where accreditation has a
role.
Some countries use it, manycountries don't, but I think
it's growing, particularly inAsia.
It's growing.
It's growing particularly inAsia.
(29:49):
It's growing.
There's a lot more recognitionof accreditation as an integral
part of quality infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
We've talked about the impact accreditation has on
the larger you know macro level.
Let's turn it the other way fora second and let's talk about
the impact accreditation has onindividual laboratories and
quality of testing.
You know you've been involvedwith accreditation for a long
time, so how do you see theimpact that accreditation has on
(30:16):
the quality of the testinglaboratory itself?
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Well, I have to be biased about this, Of course, as
am I they're doing.
If they are assessed andthere's found to be deficiencies
(30:45):
in the processing requirementsor the actual following the test
methods gosh damn thenaccreditation helps the lab to
make sure they are not cuttingcorners.
I've seen results in concretetesting labs early, early on,
(31:05):
where assessors would find thatlabs would be faking.
They take the three cylindersand only test one and then make
up the numbers for the other twoand don't actually break the
other two, and of course that'svery serious.
If they do that, theiraccreditation is really suspect.
(31:26):
So I think accreditationdefinitely encourages people to
do the right thing and beingvery serious about whatever is
required in the process of thetest follow the test, Don't cut
corners, Don't try to get thejob over quickly.
That is unacceptable and causespossible erroneous results that
(31:55):
get reported to the client andthen things happen in a very bad
way possibly.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
You know we were in a low bid environment.
You know we were in a low bidenvironment and if people are
(32:27):
not careful about who they awardthese contracts to, you're
going to have more problems.
But yeah, I agree with what yousaid An unaccredited laboratory
can be as good as an accreditedlaboratory, but you don't know.
You don't know.
There's no accountability,there's no.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Third, party objective evaluation.
So so, while it, is possible.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
We have not.
We haven't found a whole lot oflaboratories come into our
program that are not accredited.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
That find it to be an easy process.
Yeah, that gives me someconfidence that the
accreditation process has somevalue.
Yeah, and when they sit downand say, well, document, what's
our policy, what are ourobjectives, what?
What are the processes we needto follow to make sure we're
providing consistently good data?
How do we treat our people?
You know it does.
It provides some discipline,right, and and we haven't had
(33:02):
any recent disasters in thisarea, frankly, and so things are
being done professionallybetter, clearly.
So I'm very happy to sayaccreditation is very valuable
for the labs themselves andtheir customers.
I mean, ultimately, thecustomers have to make decisions
(33:27):
based on test data and if thetest data is wrong, it can cause
possibly mistakes, includingdeaths, and that's particularly
(33:50):
why accreditation is valuablefor the life and death tests and
certifications.
So, anyway, that's my opinionand I think the laboratories who
get accredited feel morecomfortable, feel more
(34:21):
comfortable.
They get very proud thatthey've accomplished something
that may not be as easy as somepeople suggest.
It's not necessarily easygetting accredited and certain
(34:44):
kind of testing is maybe moredifficult than others.
I know most, actually, becauseof the development of concrete
and thermal insulation.
Construction materials testingis probably I'm most familiar
with, but also environmentaltesting, food testing,
(35:05):
calibration or other areas whereI've gone out and at least
witnessed assessments.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Accreditation covers all kinds of different topics,
right.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Your accreditation is particularly important to make
sure that building products, thebuildings themselves, roadwork
bridges are actually not goingto fail with people in them or
people on them, and that's ahuge, huge deal, Huge deal.
(35:37):
So I greatly respect the AASHTOeffort to accredit all the
laboratories that are in thisbusiness, whether it's in the
United States or maybe they havesome clients internationally.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Right, I appreciate that and we do.
It's funny because you know youhave some people who are really
skeptical or jaded and say, oh,you're just trying to make more
money or have more customers.
It's like that is never theobjective.
I mean we want more oversight,we want more assurance that what
is being paved or being putinto a structure is what it is
(36:19):
supposed to be and to protectthe public interest.
And that's about it supposed tobe and to protect the public
interest, and that's about it.
I mean, if it's 2,000 labs, ifit's 1,000 labs, if it's 500
labs, whatever it is, we justwant to make sure it's done
properly and I think we've madesome improvements.
And it is hard telling,especially some of the things
that you mentioned the cases offraud, misrepresentation of
(36:43):
information, taking shortcutsthat stuff can be really hard to
determine in a short visit.
But we certainly do try toidentify those things when we
can and take action.
And I think that's hard for allaccrediting bodies to be able to
take action that they need totake, especially in a
competitive environment wherethey could go to a lower quality
(37:05):
alternative, if there isn'tsome kind of you know back to
your ILAC recognition, if thereisn't some kind of assurance of
consistency, it can be reallydifficult for people.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Leveling the playing field.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
So that competition among laboratories is fair and
that everybody has to live up tothe same standard.
To me is the justification forwhat you guys are doing and why
accreditation is valuable levelsthe playing field absolutely
well, pete.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Thank you so much for your time.
One last thing I'd like you toto give you an opportunity to
just tell people how to reachout to you if they are
interested in hiring you as aconsultant.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
You can search the website iqeiscom I-Q-E-I-S dot
com.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
So we'll have a link to your website for sure, and
email so people can reach out toyou.
Thank you for your time today,pete.
I know you've got a today, pete.
I know you've got a lot goingon, so I appreciate the history
lesson.
This was really fascinating forme as an accrediting body
director.
To hear the background of howall these things developed was
(38:19):
really interesting.
So thanks for sharing your timeand expertise with us today.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Thanks, Brian, Thanks .
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Kim, thanks for listening to AASHTO Resource Q&A
.
If you'd like to be a guest orjust submit a question, send us
an email at podcast atAASHTOresourceorg, or call Brian
at 240-436-4820.
For other news and relatedcontent, check out AASHTO
Resources' social media accountsor go to ashtoresourceorg.
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