"Today, the national accreditation system is undergoing an important stage of transformation. Since the beginning of 2025, systemic changes have begun in the body's work. The first step was an open dialogue with the market. Two major industry forums were held in Almaty and Astana with the participation of over 500 people. According to system representatives, participants discussed the need for a 'reboot' of accreditation, and following the meetings, key problems were identified and possible solutions were proposed."
Thus, since 2025, changes aimed at increasing the transparency of procedures and strengthening control have begun to be implemented in the system. As explained by the center, one of the main problems in the organization was the lack of transparency in laboratory accreditation. This concerns technical and testing laboratories that check the quality of products, construction materials, equipment, environmental indicators, and issue official conclusions.
To solve this problem, the NCA began implementing photo and video recording during accreditation. Now inspectors must record equipment, premises, and the assessment process itself. Internal procedures and documents of the accreditation system have also been revised.
"Currently, the transparency and reliability of assessment procedures have been significantly increased, corruption risks have been minimized, the possibility of informal agreements between assessors and accredited entities has been eliminated, and control over the actual availability of equipment and testing conditions has been strengthened," reported the NCA.
Photo and video recording began to be applied in areas where mobile measuring instruments are used. In the future, as NCA employees reported, they plan to make this requirement mandatory for all organizations undergoing accreditation.
The center also states that it has revised its approach to selecting experts. The NCA claims that previously the same specialists could participate in the work, while the new mechanism involves random selection of experts and updating the registry.
"Previously, the system had a limited pool of expert assessors, which made it difficult to attract new specialists. To update the expert pool, they began attracting new employees and professional organizations. Additionally, 20 memorandums were signed with international educational and scientific institutions, universities, and industry associations," reported the NCA.
For the first time in the history of the accreditation body, the "20 New Assessors" project has been launched, which involves attracting new specialists from various industries. Work is currently underway with 35 candidates.
Simultaneously, the NCA implemented random selection of technical experts. According to center representatives, such a mechanism should reduce the risk of bias and eliminate the constant involvement of the same specialists.
The organization notes that recently they have adjusted internal documents, implemented checklists for assessment, begun digitizing part of the processes, and developed a unified registry of documents issued by laboratories and certification bodies.
Among the changes are laboratory equipment identification via QR codes, remote inspections, and automatic calculation of accreditation costs.
"One of the problems was the use of the same equipment by several laboratories at once. Sometimes equipment would only physically appear in the laboratory during the inspection. To solve this problem, we implemented an identification system: each device is assigned a unique QR code linked to its serial number. This allows tracking the equipment and eliminating the practice of its use by different laboratories. To date, such identification has already been carried out for 17 entities."