IARNM shall carry out its functions and powers in accordance with the Law on Accreditation, the Decision, the Statute and other IARNM acts, standards and regulations in the area of accreditation. IARNM shall be structured and shall operate according to the provisions in the standard MKS EN ISO/IEC 17011. In the course of its work, IARNM shall use other documents and guidelines by the EA (European Cooperation for Accreditation) and by the international accreditation organizations ILAC (International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation) and IAF (International Accreditation Forum), which concentrate in greater detail on the above stated standards of particular accreditation areas.

Mission

To have offered accreditation to all interested parties according to the prescribed rules of law, regulation or standard and display regard to the accreditation principles. The attainment of the Mission is dependent on the requirements of appropriate Macedonian, European and international standards and guidelines by the ЕА (European Cooperation for Accreditation) and by the international accreditation organizations ILAC (International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation) and IAF (International Accreditation Forum)

The vision of the IARNM is to become an acknowledged member of the European and international organizations and to participate in the development of the economy of the country. The major vision achievement would be enabling conditions to approach international schemes so as to reach mutual recognition of the following: 

• Calibration certificates;

• Testing reports;

• Conformity assessment certificates; and

• Inspection certificates/ reports

IARNM shall operate to the advantage of all beneficiaries (interested parties); the indirect ones, such as the conformity assessment bodies and the direct ones, such as the consumers, industry and state administration bodies. IARNM shall advocate provision of efficient services of minimum accreditation cost to all indirect beneficiaries, and to the direct beneficiaries shall commit to offering conformity assessment according to reasonable prices accepted by all international market buyers. By the means of its transparent work, accreditations pursuant to the EU legislation and provision of competence and confidence in the conformity assessment bodies, the IARNM shall pledge to gain the state administration bodies’ trust and to act as the foundation for the notification of the conformity assessment bodies in accordance with the EU directives.

Through the process of accreditation, the conformity assessment bodies to obtain confidence which will alleviate the free movement of goods and services. One of the aims of today’s developed worlds is to perform accreditation and conformity assessment only once. Therefore, the international accreditation bodies have developed a so-called “peer evaluation” mechanism, which will enable mutual recognition of conformity assessment results by doing only one accreditation and only one conformity assessment.

By the means of international connections and development of international trade, the focus has been placed on securing confidence and comparability of results on international level, going beyond the national boundaries thus causing all accreditation procedures to be delivered according to the internationally recognized standards of the series ISO 17000 and ЕN 45000; whereas in parallel, the national accreditation bodies are linking with the international organizations (EA, ILAC,IAF), a fact which additionally contributes to a greater harmonization of the accreditation systems.

IARNM shall apply the principles of accreditation based on appropriate national, European and international standards and other documents of European and international accreditation organizations. The principles are as follows:

• Transparency and accessibility;

• Representation of public interests;

• Accreditation on voluntary basis;

• Securing impartiality/ independence;

• Unbiased accreditation procedure and complaints resolution procedure;

• Harmonization and equivalency of accreditation procedures with the European and international procedures;

• Securing a non-discriminatory approach;

• Obtaining the clients’ confidence;

• Protection of data;

• Operation and decision making process which are not commercially driven

IARNM shall be organized in a manner such as to secure independence/impartiality of the accreditation activities, participation of interested parties in the IARNM’s management, bearing in mind at all times to preclude prevalence of interest.

The basic role of the IARNM is to accredit the following:

1.     Testing laboratories (MKS EN ISO/IEC 17025)

2.     Calibration laboratories (MKS EN ISO/IEC 17025)

3.     Inspection bodies (MKS EN ISO/IEC 17020)

4.     Certification bodies for:

o    Certification of products(MKS EN 45011);

o    Certification of management systems (MKS EN ISO/IEC 17021);

o    Certification of persons (MKS EN ISO/IEC 17024);

IARNM by the means of its activities shall:

• Contribute to the development of the national quality infrastructure;

• Indirectly contribute towards improvement of quality of products and services;

• Enhance general safety;

• Improve competition and

• Assist globalization of economy on the basis of fair competition.

IARNM shall advocate a transparent structure, public accessibility to documents, acknowledgement by beneficiaries of a fair relationship and timely reporting. The delivery of accreditation shall be based on expertise, transparency, independence, impartiality and non-profitability. Thus, the IARNM shall contribute towards the progress of the Republic of North Macedonia and within its powers shall participate in the advancement of the European and international accreditation. The accreditation is to always be carried out upon a request by the client. IARNM shall enforce the accreditation procedure following a contract stipulating the rights and responsibilities between the IARNM and the client/beneficiary of service. The scope of activity shall be performed by the IARNM in a non-discriminatory manner, thus issuing an accreditation certificate to every beneficiary of service that during the accreditation procedure has demonstrated fulfilment of the requirements of the standard against which accreditation has been sought.