Most countries in the world have a national accreditation body. In the UK this UKAS, in Germany DaKKS and in France it is COFRAC.In the Netherlands it is the RvA. Their primary task consists of accrediting and renewing the accreditations of conformity-assessment bodies: laboratories, inspection bodies, certification bodies and verification bodies. This is to ensure that trust in the quality of products and services is genuinely justified.
The RvA is a private organisation. In 2010 the Dutch government appointed the RvA as the national accreditation body based on European Regulation 765/2008. Since then the RvA has become an independent government agency that answers to the Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate. As an independent organisation and independent government agency the RvA is a non-profit organisation.
The RvA was founded in 1995 following a multi-party merger involving:
RvA clients are conformity-assessment bodies:
Conformity-assessment bodies assess whether products and services from suppliers meet the specified requirements. They do this for every imaginable field of work: health, environment, constructions, energy, food, transport and finance, to name but a few. In the event of a positive assessment the supplier is issued with a statement of conformity in the form of a certificate or report.
It is important that conformity-assessment bodies are expert, impartial and independent because only then statements they issue are useful and reliable. The RvA therefore checks that these bodies meet the European (EN) and international (ISO or ISO/IEC) standards. If they do they receive an accreditation mark – an audit of the audit.
UPI Laboratories Europe BV is an RvA accredited laboratory for the calibartion of hardness testing indenters.
You will find a list of all of all RvA clients in the list of RvA accredited bodies.
Contact RvA:
Raad voor Accreditatie (RvA)
Daalseplein 101
3511 SX Utrecht
The NETHERLANDS