1. National Accreditation System for Laboratories  Progress to date  Meeting held on 18 May 1999 under auspices of COLTO RMC & SANAS  Purpose  Chart the way ahead for accreditation of laboratories in the road construction industry

2. Progress  Attendance by about 70 people  Materials suppliers, contractors, consultants, government agencies, independent laboratories, SABS, Technikons, SANAS

3. Outcome  Acceptance of SANAS as the umbrella organisation for accreditation to ISO/IC Guide 25  Incorporation of expert representatives from road laboratories in the Special Technical Committee for Civil Engineering and Road Technology

4. STC progress  STC has met three times  The following issues are being dealt with which arose from the meeting of 18 May:  Field laboratory accreditation  Accreditation of field non-standard test methods

5. STC issues being dealt with  Repeatability and reproducibility of tests  Reference & correlation testing and SANAS requirements for proficiency testing schemes  Marketing and education of client bodies and local authorities

6. STC issues dealt with  Guideline documents for the road industry  Link with standards generating body related to SAQA and role of ECSA  Computer software standards

7. Interaction  Good interaction between the COLTO Materials Testing Committee and SANAS STC  4 MTC members serve on STC

8. Challenges  The dearth of materials technicians available for training at quality auditors for the accreditation process  No course for materials technicians at the technikons for 10 years: efforts are being made at Pretoria Technikon to reintroduce the course  Establishing suitable evaluation criteria for accreditation

9. Challenges  The updating of test methods and management of the distribution thereof  Materials Testing Committee responsibility  Lacks money and manpower to achieve this  Phase 1 to get TMH 1 on the Web in present format completed  Will take a long time to do required revision with present resources

10. General comments  Accreditation infrastructure provided by SANAS will facilitate accreditation  Industry forces and economics will determine how successful the drive towards accreditation will be