Which third-party laboratories are CNAS accredited?

Checking it yourself is more reliable than asking any laboratory

CNAS accreditation information is public and the search path is fixed:

1. Open the China National Accreditation Service website (cnas.org.cn)
2. Go to the register of accredited bodies under the accreditation services section
3. Search by organisation name, accreditation certificate number, or the keyword of your test item
4. Download the annex describing that body's scope of accreditation and check it item by item

Anyone can do these four steps without going through a third party. Whether a laboratory can run your test is decided by that annex, not by the brochure they send you.

The scope is listed by test item, not by organisation

A laboratory's scope of accreditation can run to dozens of pages, laid out as a table of test object / item / reference standard / measurement range. Within the same organisation, temperature cycling may be inside the scope while salt mist is outside, or EMC may be accredited for emissions only and not for immunity.

So the right question is: "I need random vibration to ISO 16750-3 — is that item inside your scope of accreditation?" — not "are you CNAS accredited?". Everyone answers yes to the second question.

CMA and CNAS are not the same thing

• CMA (inspection and testing body qualification): under the Measures for the Administration of Inspection and Testing Body Qualification, any body issuing data and results with probative value to the public inside China must hold it. Reports carry the CMA mark.
• CNAS (laboratory accreditation): competence accreditation based on ISO/IEC 17025. It is voluntary, but through the ILAC mutual recognition arrangement it is widely accepted internationally. Export projects and multinational customers often require it.

A laboratory can hold both, or only one. Decide by purpose: domestic regulatory work, tendering and forensic appraisal generally require CMA; export and foreign-invested customers place more weight on CNAS.

Three things to check when the report arrives

• Whether the cover carries the CMA / CNAS mark and the certificate number
• Whether the item name and reference standard in the body are the exact revision you asked for
• Whether the item is inside the scope annex (items outside the scope cannot carry the accreditation mark on the report)

One easily missed detail: the standard revision

The same standard number can exist in several year versions (for example ISO 16750-3 in its 2007 and 2012 editions, whose test conditions differ). State the revision on the commissioning form and it will be noted on the report. If your customer checks a 2007 report against the 2012 revision, it will not line up and the work is wasted.

Our accreditation

TMC LAB holds both CMA and CNAS accreditation. If you need to verify a specific item, ask us for the annex to the scope — checking the scope before discussing the project is the right order.