60-year-old Australian concept builds world confidence in technology

Sixty years ago this month, Australia developed a system of ensuring laboratory competence that has now been adopted by more than 70 countries.

The system led to the formation of the National Association of Testing Authorities in February 1947, a non-government, not-for-profit association. The association was charged with providing a national testing service to Australia which would span across all technical, industrial and geographical areas of the country.

Test reliability is largely invisible to the public at large but is fundamental to almost every aspect of domestic life, ranging from the impacts on pathology services, transport and defence systems, environmental monitoring and protection, issues of public health and safety, occupational health, forensic services, construction, and general commerce in industry agriculture and resources.

There is also a global dimension to confidence in testing and measurement where so many goods and services are traded with test data accompanying the goods across national borders. The need for international acceptance of test data has spurred the need for mechanisms to enhance the confidence in such data.

National laboratory accreditation bodies, many of which have been directly modelled on Australia's initiatives, have moved to fill this need for international confidence through the establishment of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC), which itself celebrates its 30th year in 2007.

While NATA's early focus was on industrial support, its accreditation now covers the full gamut of testing and measurement needs in Australia. This ranges from tests on construction integrity of off-shore platforms through to verification of software for security systems.

"NATA is evolving all the time. It's an organisation which increasingly finds itself working in spheres it would never have dreamed of when it was first established. And as with forensic science services for instance, NATA is becoming increasingly involved in sciences that have a direct social impact," Tony Russell, NATA CEO said.

NATA is an organisation that has continued to grow and is still the largest national laboratory accreditation body internationally, employing 160 people and relying on the voluntary services of almost 3000 of Australia's expert scientists, engineers and technologists to evaluate the competence of accredited facilities.