ATS gave a lecture to FON students

Another lecture was given to fourth year students (course of study: Quality Management) on 19^th March 2014 at the premises of the Faculty of Organisational Sciences, University of Belgrade, in order to further promote importance of accreditation and international recognition of ATS.

The opening address was given by prof. Vojislav Božanić PhD, professor at the Faculty of Organisational Sciences, that thanked Jasna Stojanović, ATS Acting Director, for her continued support to young generation of students that would be able one day to give their own contribution in this field.

At the beginning of her lecture Jasna Stojanović explained the ATS mode of operation so that students could see a practical application of acquired knowledge. ATS Acting Director emphasised that the main purpose of accreditation was to ensure safety and protection of public interest, and provide trust as regards general health and safety, occupational health and safety, consumer protection and environmental protection. When placed in an international context this means that accreditation enables free movement of goods and services and removes trade barriers in line with Article 6.1 of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. Moreover, functioning of the world accreditation network was explained together with the importance of signed multilateral agreements of international organisations for accreditation (ILAC and IAF), and European co-operation for Accreditation (EA). ATS Acting Director explained what ISO standards ATS used in its everyday work wih special emphasis on the importance of ISO 17011 as the most important standard from the ATS perspective. Hence it was necessary to mention that another EA peer evaluation of ATS had been carried out last year to evaluate the compliance of established accreditation system in accordance with the requirements of ISO/IEC 17011, relevant requirements of the EU legislation (Regulation (EC) No. 765/2008), and with guidance documents of EA, ILAC and IAF.

International recognition of ATS and continual upgrade of of promotion of accreditation in 2013 enabled ATS to accredit 520 conformity assessment bodies (CABs) which was a 39% increase when compared with the number of accredited CABs in 2009.

2014 strategic objectives of ATS remain focused on successful maintenance of signed MLAs (EA MLA/ILAC MRA/IAF MLA), further upgrade of cooperation with ministries and all interested parties, continual upgrade of accreditation system, competence of both ATS assessors and permanent employees, and on further interactive communication with CABs and extension of the fields of accreditation.

At the end of the lecture students asked Jasna Stojanović a large number of questions in order to learn about deadlines for the definition and acceptance of corrective actions, ATS status at EU level, need for retesting of products when placed on the EU market, relationship between accreditation and authorisation, importance of cross-frontier accreditation, etc.

Finally, Jasna Stojanović invited students to visit the ATS internet portal on a regular basis since it could be a valuable source of information when producing papers.

 

prof. Vojislav Božanić PhD with students

Lecture atmosphere

Jasna Stojanović, ATS Acting Director, answering questions