10th January 2012, Bubenreuth Germany

After an initial meeting during MIPTEC in Basel with various interested parties from SiLA organization, it was decided to start a working group “WG Certification” to define the scope and procedure of a SiLA specific certification process. The overall objective is to establish and maintain quality management system for the SiLA label licensed to manufacturers of SiLA compliant products. It was pointed out, that SiLA is ready to defend its trademark against any fraud or unlicensed use in order to protect its value in high quality lab standardization.

Based on the presentation shown at MIPTEC we prepared an augmented version of a general procedure for certification. All in all it defines the procedures for accreditation of test sites, the assignment of auditors and the accreditation of test sites. These entities will be supplemented by an “Interoperability Facility” which will be established and operated with the purpose allowing to test the inter-operability of SiLA certified products and to ensure a smooth operation of multi-vendor installations. By this means there will be a neutral facility to enable co-operation during product development beyond pure compliance with the standard certification of products.

How the certification process works

Prerequisites handled by SiLA organization in order to establish the certification process are as:

• Standards need to be defined and approved by SiLA
• Certification office needs to be established
• Test sites need to be accredited

In order to test a SiLA compliant device a manufacturer is assumed to:

• Put his devices through extensive internal testing.
• Then contracts an accredited test site (optional: could be at manufacturer organization) for an independent conformity test.
• Next, the test-site tests the software in compliance with the rules of the SiLA certification office and issues a test report

How certificates are issued:

• The manufacturer submits the test report to the certification office
• and receives a certificate of conformance.
• The certified product is listed in the catalog of certified products