Letter from the president. |
It is exciting to see the feverish work going on within IAS |
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| On Friday, February 3, 2017, a few days prior to public announcement, I informed International Accreditation Service (IAS) staff of my retirement from the organization effective March 31, 2018. This was an emotional, but satisfying moment for me having been a part of a very successful non-profit, public-benefit corporation since its inception in 1973 under a legacy organization.
Subsequent to the announcement, a SWOT analysis was conducted and compared to a similar exercise done two years ago. The analysis revealed that our present approach to seek opportunities in developing economies and strengthening relationships with industry organizations is appropriate and essential for our continued growth. It was also clear that global political uncertainties coupled with rapid expansion of services in new business areas will require additional staff and an enhanced cloud-based, interactive website. International Accreditation Service is already on track to deploy a state-of-the art website and additional features are being added to allow for better project management. This interactive website will be linked to assessor and customer portals, thus allowing 24/7 access to the database. Later this year, as additional new program areas are rolled out, staffing resources will be thoroughly reviewed. The IAS management system, including all related operating procedures for each program, is currently being overhauled. We envision the new system to break away from the conventional approach to synchronize with the new cloud-based information technology (IT) architecture. Along with these infrastructure changes, accreditation documents and assessment checklists are being revamped to meet a process-based approach. The new IAS website is expected to be launched in July 2017. Under Senior Vice President Raj Nathan's direction, our internal IT team headed by Karthik Easwar, with able support from Patrick McCullen and Radua Nazir, has been working tirelessly to ensure the process changes are fully embedded into the new software. "Our present approach to seek opportunities in developing economies and strengthening relationships with industry organizations is appropriate and essential for our continued growth." In mid-March 2017, an in-depth management review meeting was held at IAS headquarters to discuss, among other items, results of the internal audit conducted in late 2016. The audit clearly showed the need for strengthening internal processes to meet our service goals and expanding customer base. A new IAS program for accreditation of medical laboratories under ISO/IEC Standard 15189:2012 is currently under development. I expect the new program to be launched by the end of the year. Concurrent with this, staff is also looking at an accreditation program in the food safety area under the regulatory control of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. More information on this will be available in the third quarter. I congratulate the IAS staff and contractors for helping us exceed budget expectations in the first quarter of 2017. It is exciting to see the feverish work going on within IAS to take us past the 1,000 count of accredited entities before I "hang up my hat" in March 2018. 
C.P. (Chuck) Ramani, P.E., CBO President International Accreditation Service |