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IAS eNews

Accreditation Helps A&P Double Revenue

In business for the past 31 years, Analytical and Precision Balance Co. (A&P), based in Phoenix, Arizona, is best known for its talented staff and large selection of scales, laboratory balances and moisture analyzers. However, in early 2003, the company had started to lose some of its major clients because of an industry-wide shift to requiring accreditation to the ANS/ISO/IEC Standard 17025:2005, General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories.

When Mike Williams, current president and owner of A&P, took over the company, he made it his first order of business to gain that accreditation. For help, he looked to the International Accreditation Service (IAS) Calibration Laboratory Accreditation Program. The process for becoming an IAS-accredited calibration laboratory begins with the calibration laboratory’s submittal of an application, applicable fees and a quality management system manual. “We had the documentation prepared, so we submitted our application, which in turn initiated a whirlwind of activity that involved comprehensive reviews and audits of our people, processes and facilities,” recalled Williams.

In the fall of 2003, A&P completed one of the most stringent accreditation programs in the industry, which included an on-site assessment of the technical competence of A&P laboratory’s staff, its equipment, and the implementation and effectiveness of its quality management system. A&P technicians are all certified by Arizona Weights and Measurements under a rigorous annual certification program that helped to demonstrate A&P’s compliance with the personnel certification requirements in the IAS Accreditation Criteria for Calibration Laboratories (AC204).

Since gaining IAS accreditation, A&P has doubled its gross revenue. Williams concluded, “Accreditation was the single biggest factor in doubling our growth in sales and calibration. Soon after that, several of the biggest clients that had left in the year prior, returned because we hold ourselves to the highest standards in the industry.”