Accreditation of small laboratories

This paper presents the result of an investigation concerning which areas o f EN 45001 are considered as especially problematic by small laboratories ( <10 employees). The investigation was performed by distributing questionnai res to European laboratories. To be able to differentiate between areas con sidered as problematic only by small laboratories and areas considered as p roblematic by laboratories in general, some questionnaires sent in by large r (>10 employees) laboratories were used. The determination of measurement uncertainties within reasonable efforts and the requirements to take part i n round robin and proficiency testing were considered problematic by labora tories of all sizes. Training is an area where small laboratories have spec ific problems and so are the requirements for the identification of all equ ipment. Other problematic areas for small laboratories are areas were there are needs for personnel, e.g. appointing supervising personnel and expendi ture for internal audits. The last area to be considered as problematic is matters concerning documentation. Finally some advice concerning assessment of small laboratories is given.