KINGSTON, Jamaica – Three private and public-sector entities were recently accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 Standard.

These are the Jamaica Public Service Company Limited (JPS), for its High Voltage and Testing Services Laboratory; the National Water Commission (NWC), for its Instrumentation and Meters Laboratory; and the National Compliance and Regulatory Authority (NCRA) for Food Inspection, Monitoring and Sampling, and Inspection, Monitoring and Sampling of Imported Pre-Packaged Goods, among other services.

The entities’ accreditation confirms their technical competence to conduct testing and inspection activities in support of trade and commerce.

The awards were presented by the Jamaica National Agency for Accreditation (JANAAC) during the entity’s CEO Breakfast at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston, in commemoration of World Accreditation Day on June 9.

Director for Engineering and Standards at the JPS, Ricardo Case, shared that the award makes the organisation’s High Voltage Testing Laboratory, “one of the few accredited high voltage testing facilities in the Caribbean”.

He said the achievement coinciding with the company’s 100th year of providing energy to Jamaica shows JPS’s commitment to serving its customers with excellence.

“The accreditation… will ensure quicker, more efficient and more accurate testing of equipment like transformers and tools using live line work. We will [also] be able to do more maintenance work without interrupting service to our customers,” Case informed.

“We can continue to provide testing services of the highest standard to neighbouring Caribbean [countries] as well as local contractors and other operators in the electric utility industry,” he added.

Meanwhile, NWC Vice President of Operations, Kevin Kerr, explained that “in our line of business, the integrity of our water metres is vital to customers’ confidence and our revenue stream”.

“To be able to show that the metres are not only imported from world-class facilities but their performance is also tested and calibrated at those international efficiencies is nothing short of satisfying,” Kerr expressed.

Highlighting the benefits of being accredited, he said “our laboratory now has certification that says it is competent in providing testing services and the reliability of the test results”.

This, he added, “will mitigate the need for retesting, leading to improved health and safety and the facilitation of international trade”.

Kerr advised that the NWC “has the only fully calibrated and certified test bench in the island [that is] able to facilitate accuracy testing for our water supply metres of all sizes”.

The NCRA’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Lorice Edwards Brown, thanked her team, JANAAC, and the Caricom Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ), which provided financial and consultancy support to the entity throughout the accreditation process.

“We certainly have had our fair share of storms. But we have listened and adjusted and today is the making of a new day at the NCRA,” Dr Brown stated.

-JIS