Educating future accreditors at JASANZ Futures Programme
We recently supported the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand’s (JASANZ) Futures Programme presenting jointly with Standards Australia.
Standards Australia and Standards New Zealand present the development process
JASANZ accredits the bodies that certify or inspect organisations’ management systems, products, services, or people’s competence to perform certain tasks. They specify the assessment criteria that certifiers and inspectors must meet to become accredited across diverse sectors. Here standards play a key role in helping determine assessment criteria and competency requirements.
Learn more about the work of JASANZ(external link)
A joined-up approach
Malcolm MacMillan, National Manager Standards New Zealand, and Sam Mason, Principal Project Manager, presented with our counterpart in Standards Australia, explaining how we fit into the assessment and conformance system, who we work with and the benefits of joint standards, and how standards are developed. JASANZ’s Future Programme, launched for the first time this March, is an online programme designed to help build the next generation of conformity assessment professionals. This cohort is predominately from the manufacturing sector.
Standards set the benchmark for product safety
For professionals specialising in product development and manufacturing, standards set the benchmark for consumer safety and product reliability with examples including standards for clothing and electrical equipment, toys and bicycle helmets, and value-chain guidelines like NZS ISO 10377:2017 Consumer product safety - Guidelines for suppliers and AS/NZS ISO/IEC 17065:2013 Conformity assessment - Requirements for bodies certifying products, processes and services.
We are always keen to help foster individuals’ interest in participating in the quality infrastructure system, which includes standardisation, metrology, and conformance, and to support subject matter experts’ involvement in developing standards and thank JASANZ for the opportunity.
The image below shows the regulation and conformance space we operate in to illustrate other agencies we work alongside.
The New Zealand regulatory and conformance framework