The production of certified reference materials (CRMs) has grown rapidly since the mid 1990s, largely driven by demand created by the accreditation of testing laboratories to ISO/IEC 17025 and is now a multimillion U.S. Dollar global business

It seems that there is no limit to the number of laboratories seeking and maintaining accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025. Why is this? Properly described as “ISO/IEC 17025 General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories has been around since 1999, but its origins lie in ISO Guide 25 and European Standard EN4501.

The proper validation of an analytical instrument is a topic that has long concerned me. Laboratories accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 put much effort into validating a method, but the starting point is that the analytical system is working properly because it has been calibrated using a CRM.