Accreditation is the formal recognition of a body’s competence to conduct a specific activity such as testing or certification. This recognition is based on a specific series of International standards. These standards address critical issues such as competence, impartiality and integrity.
The extensive range of products and services available often make it difficult for the customer to decide which product or service best meets their quality and safety requirements. The supplier can therefore apply to have their product or service assessed objectively by an organization such as a certification body or test laboratory appropriate to the product or service. A certificate of conformance or test report is issued accordingly.
These certificates or reports are only useful or reliable if the organization or individual conducting the assessment or test is competent and qualified. The accreditation of the organization, for a defined scope, is the mechanism that provides the customer with this confidence.
The international nature of the standards means that a company or product in Pakistan can be assessed or tested to the same standards as a company in Switzerland or Australia, providing confidence in the comparability of certificates and reports across national borders.

What is Certification?  

Legal or administrative entity that has specific tasks and composition. What is Conformity Assessment?

Any activity concerned with determining directly or indirectly that relevant requirements are fulfilled. 

Set of operations that establish, under specified conditions, the relationship between values of quantities indicated by a measuring instrument or measuring system, or values represented by a material measure or a reference material, and the corresponding values realized by standards. 

Property of the result of a measurement or the value of a standard whereby it can be related to stated references, usually national or international standards, through an unbroken chain of comparisons all having stated uncertainties. 

Technical operation that consists of the determination of one or more characteristics of a given product, process or service according to a specified procedure. 

The Conformity Assessment Body is an entity operating in conformance with the national & international standards relevant to its field of activities. The CAB certifies the manufacturers or the service providers and enterprises, which can demonstrate that they have implemented a system based on a national or international standard such as the Quality Management System (QMS) i.e. ISO-9000 and Environmental Management Systems (EMS) i.e. ISO-14000. 

The Global market allows the free movement of goods, services and personnel. This free trade presupposes confidence in the product or service being offered and can only be effective upon elimination of technical barriers to trade. To assist in this, the Member States have established a network of national accreditation bodies, which ensures that the competence of all laboratories, certification bodies and environmental verifiers are assessed to the same principles. With competition across boundaries continuing to intensify over time, accreditation offers companies an advantage as it differentiates them from the competition, in addition to acting as a catalyst to raise standards and institute improved work practices. 

The International Markets are of fundamental importance to Pakistan. The PNAC’s activities ensure that accredited certificates and test results produced here are acceptable throughout the World. This eliminates the need for multiple assessments when goods cross frontiers, giving Pakistan industry the best competitive advantage possible in what is an ever-expanding and aggressive market place. Build confidence of the consumers in a product or service certified by an accredited CAB and facilitate the regulators in maintaining security, health, safety, environment and other such requirements. 

Accreditation is chosen by an organization because of the competitive advantages it affords, through access to a given market via independent assessment and demonstration of compliance with international requirements. Organizations can be accredited to carry out a defined conformity assessment activity. These activities include: Testing Calibration Inspection Personnel Certification Product Certification Environmental Management Systems Certification Quality Management Systems. 

Once an organization is accredited, a Scope of Accreditation is issued which details the specific areas accredited by the Board. This Scope is published and maintained by the PNAC. 

The PNAC strongly encourages laboratories to use the PNAC’s logo on their test/calibration reports or certificates. The combination of the PNAC’s logo in association with the accreditation standard and the registration number detailing the organization’s Scope of Accreditation. The use of the mark and logo is subject to strict criteria laid down in the PNAC’s Regulations. 

PNAC is committed to offering a professional standard of accreditation services and welcomes all feedback from stakeholders and other interested parties about the services it provides. This feedback can be forwarded to info@pnac.org.pk In the event that PNAC receives a complaint relating to the activities of PNAC or its accredited organizations, PNAC will make every effort to resolve the complaint in accordance with the policy outlined below. whenever a complaint is received against any action, service or employee/personnel engaged by PNAC or its accredited CAB the Director concerned in consultation with QMR will efficiently attend and resolved the complaint with the approval of DG. PNAC aims to process complaints in a timely manner and shall respect where possible any reasonable request for preservation of anonymity or confidentiality requested by those making claims or statements in connection with a complaint. The PNAC will formally reply to the complainant detailing the results of the investigation and any actions to be taken by PNAC where applicable. Further information on how PNAC processes complaints may be obtained from The Pakistan National Accreditation Council.