The role of subcontracting in testing, inspection and certification has increased significantly during recent years. The use of subcontracting has increased and it will become subject to comprehensive assessment during the assessment of various operators.

All accreditation requirement standards permit the use of subcontracting, and the general principles for the use of subcontracting are the same in all requirement standards. Subcontracting must be transparent throughout the entire subcontracting chain, which increases confidence in the subcontracted activity. Use of subcontracting should be agreed on in sufficient detail with the customer.  An operator using subcontracting is always responsible for the results of a subcontractor, also in the case of serial subcontracting. Moreover, the competence of the subcontractor and the correctness of the results should continuously be ensured. The requirement standards contain, in addition to general principles, sector-specific requirements, which are taken into account when assessing subcontracting in these sectors. The policy document describes in more detail aspects that should be taken into consideration when assessing the subcontracting.

The policy document for FINAS was drawn up by a working group appointed by the Advisory Committee for Accreditation Matters (VANK-P) during years 2014-106. FINAS utilises policies and aspects presented in the policy document in planning and realization of assessments.

A11/2016 Principles for the Assessment of Subcontracting

More information:
Lead assessor Marjukka Mäkinen, firstname.lastname (a) finas.fi