Impartiality

The National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) management and staff value the importance of impartiality and consideration of any risk to carrying out the accreditation activities in a manner that may impact that impartiality.

NVLAP administers its policies and procedures in an impartial and nondiscriminatory manner.  Access to NVLAP accreditation is not conditional on the size of a laboratory or on its membership in any association or group, nor is it conditional upon the number of laboratories already accredited.  NVLAP’s accreditation services are available to public and private testing and calibration laboratories, including commercial laboratories, manufacturers’ in-house laboratories, university laboratories, and federal, state, and local government laboratories, unless otherwise stated in the NIST Handbook 150-xx series of program-specific handbooks.

NVLAP accreditation is based on evaluation of a laboratory’s management and technical competence for conducting specific tests or calibrations. Accreditation is granted only after thorough evaluation of an applicant has demonstrated that all NVLAP requirements have been fulfilled. Fulfillment of requirements is acknowledged by the issuance of a Certificate of Accreditation and a Scope of Accreditation, which details the specific test methods, calibration parameters, or services for which a laboratory has been accredited.

NVLAP’s policy on impartiality is in NIST Handbook 150.