United Accreditation Service (UAS) is an accreditation body for the United States of America, to assess organisations that provide certification, testing, inspection and calibration services. United Accreditation Service (UAS) is in fact one of the leading international accreditation bodies in the world, respected for its integrity, practicality and impartiality. We belong toan international association for accreditation, which promotes best practices in quality assurance worldwide and we pride ourselves on being technically outstanding without being overly formal or stuffy.Accreditation determines the technical competence and integrity of organisations offering testing, inspection, calibration, verification and certification services (collectively known as conformity assessment). Shortly means UAS ‘checks the checkers’. Like an experienced mentor, as opposed to a judgemental overseer, we’re here to ensure you navigate a thorough, but swift path through to compliance. UAS has accredited over many certification bodies, registered assessors, auditors and quality related personnel achievements; and certificated organisations in Worldwide.

Confidence in the market place and in our public services is essential. Trust is placed in the products and services on offer often without a second thought by the customer, such are the regulations and standards against which products are manufactured and services provided.

The benefits of accreditation are many. Accreditation can help:

• Improve your product’s or system’s quality and safetyt
• Demonstrate your market accountability
• Bring you global recognition
• Reduce costs and increase efficiency
• Reduce your risk
• Offer you a competitive advantage

Accreditation is increasingly being recognised as a valuable tool across a wide range of Government policy areas including better regulation, good governance, fair markets and public confidence. It is already being used by Government as an effective market-led tool for delivering policy more efficiently and to help deliver on its obligations in areas as diverse as healthcare, food production, energy supply, climate change and personal safety.UAS has well-established, transparent and repeatable assessment procedures applicable to all forms of conformity assessment, and so the benefits of collaborating can:

• Accreditation provides the assurance for Government to rely on commercial providers of evaluation and inspection services.
• Build business and public trust
• Provide an alternative to Regulation whilst ensuring the reliability of activities that have the potential to impact on public confidence, health and safety or the environment.
• Enable innovation in the private and public sectors
• Reduce your risk
• Offer you a competitive advantage

There are many duties placed on government departments, local authorities and other agencies to ensure that trust is maintained. Whether it be health, water quality, food, consumer goods or transport safety, for example, the public sector provides the framework for the assurance that goods and services are safe and the environment we live in is clean and secure. UAS is already in collaboration with a range of government departments that are now developing schemes to either raise standards or implement new ones as a means of increasing public confidence.

Companies buy independent evaluations either through choice (to reduce the risk of product failure for example) or as a consequence of legal requirements (such as health and safety regulations). Most commonly these evaluations are calibration of equipment, product testing, inspection of equipment and certification of management systems.

• Selecting an accredited organisation is an essential tool for decision-making and risk management.
• Organisations can save time and money by selecting an accredited and therefore competent supplier.
• Reliable measurements, tests and inspections are carried out in compliance with best practices to limit product failure and reduce down time and control manufacturing costs.
• Accreditation to internationally-recognised standards can provide a competitive advantage and facilitate access to export markets.

In some sectors, accreditation is a requirement to obtain accreditation before offering certain services; in others it is a de facto ‘licence’ to trade in that key purchasers expect it. It provides the following benefits:

• Competitive advantage: accreditation provides independent assurance that your staff is competent. It can sets you apart from the competition, and enable you to compete with larger organisations.
• Market access: accreditation is specified by an increasing number of public and private sector organisations.
• Accreditation can highlight gaps in capability, thereby providing the opportunity for improved organisational efficiency and outputs
• There are a number of insurance brokers and underwriters that recognise accreditation as an important factor in assessing risk, and can therefore offer lower premiums.

Third-party accreditation, the type that UAS provides is recognised around the world as the highest and most credible type a certification or inspection body can obtain.With such accreditation you automatically send a signal to your clients that they can be confident in what you do. This is increasingly important in a market that is growing quickly in size and complexity a market that includes many bodies operating without any such credentials.

UAS accreditation gives you the ability to:

• Highlight your competence
• Demonstrate your independence
• Increase likelihood of smooth access to overseas markets (through our formal arrangements with international accreditation organisations)
• Build confidence in your ability through benchmarking performance against other accredited bodies.

Once accredited you are able to use the UAS symbol as a visual indicator on your work as a sign of assurance. UAS offers accreditation for these themes:

• Business Process and Innovation
• Health and Human Services
• Health and Human Services
• Food and Biological Systems
• Environment

Our accreditation is open to accredited bodies providing conformity assessment services to public and proprietary conformity assessment schemes falling under these themes.

UAS is a third-party accreditation body established in 2015.UAS is a not for profit international organisation funded from our commercial activities. UAS accepts applications from certification or inspection bodies operating anywhere in the world, irrespective of their size, location or affiliation. UAS operations are overseen by a Governing Board. Our Technical Advisory Council and Accreditation Review Board allow us to bring technical expertise and stakeholder involvement to the development of accreditation programs and accreditation decisions.

All audit activities are conducted with maximum adherence to the principles of ethics and professional duties, and they follow shared and well- established procedures whereby unclear interpretations of the requirements of standards are reduced.

All stakeholders reflect a balanced representation of the main institutional, scientific, technical, economic and social subjects who have direct or indirect interest in the activities of accreditation and certification

UAS rules, which conform to the applicable international standards and guides, are under continuous review by means of mechanisms based on consent and with the use of working groups in which all interested subjects may participate.

Accreditation is granted with the assurance that the conformity assessment process is entirely free of undue influence. The independence of every member of an audit team is thoroughly checked.

UAS technical officers and assessors receive adequate professional training and refresh/updating so as to guarantee at all times a high level of performance, including through the maintenance and enhancement of their qualifications.

UAS is involved in the research and development of new accreditation schemes and in drawing up and reviewing guidelines for the harmonised evaluation of reference standards in order to meet the growing and diverse demands of global socio-economic situation.

UAS has a large network of counterparts throughout the world. The nature of our work, the complex and extensive process of accreditation, demands this.

• Integrity and confidence
• Trade support
• Linkages
• International acceptance.

We operate as a hub and depend on our strong, external relationships to enhance our services. This involves working closely with the large number of other organisations operating in the certification and inspection sphere.This includes the worlswide, scheme owners, international accreditation organisations, as well as standards and conformance technical bodies. Through these relationships, we work closely with standards writers, laboratory accreditation bodies and legal metrology institutes to promote the value of infrastructure services and to deliver services.We recognise the value of collaboration as essential to achieving the UAS Goals:

• Tap into best practice in developing professional accreditation criteria and standards and benchmark what we do
• Test our work with experts through systematic peer reviews
• Test technical accuracy
• Measure whether our performance is meeting the needs of the conformity assessment bodies and certifiers and inspectors who rely on us to perform their work.

Through these external relationships we: