iNARTE and
RABQSA Vote to Affiliate

On March 21, 2011, the iNARTE Board of Directors voted unanimously in favor of an Affiliation Agreement with RABQSA International. A few days earlier, the Board of RABQSA had approved the same motion. Both organizations offer personal credentialing through a variety of Certification Programs that are either accredited to, or in accordance with, ISO 17024.
     NARTE was established by industry leaders in 1982 in response to the FCC’s deregulation and encouragement of industry certified personnel. As an objective third party certification body, NARTE developed an evaluation process for Telecommunications Engineers based not only on examination, but real world skills and work experience.
     Early in 1987, it was determined that a similar credential certification process for EMC engineers and technicians was needed to help improve the quality of direct technical support to the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and to the U.S. fleet. In addition to improving the technical quality of support, certification, as a recognized standard, provides a demonstrable benchmark to differentiate qualified EMC/EMI personnel. More recently, iNARTE has developed similar certification programs for engineers and technicians working in ESD control and Product Safety engineering.
     In 2007, the NARTE name changed to iNARTE to recognize a growing international membership.
     RABQSA was created in 2004 by the merging of the personnel certification activities of the US based Registrar Accreditation Board (RAB) and the Australian based Quality Society of Australasia (QSA). At the time of this merger, RAB activities were controlled by the American Society for Quality (ASQ). In 2005, RAB’s accreditation programs for management systems certification bodies became the responsibility of the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB). The auditor certification and auditor training provider programs of RAB became the responsibility of RABQSA International.
     ASQ is the sole voting member of RABQSA, and RABQSA will become the sole voting member of iNARTE as a result of this latest affiliation. ASQ was established in 1946. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ASQ is a global community of experts and the leading authority on quality in all fields, organizations, and industries with over 85,000 members worldwide. ASQ supports membership services and business operations through ASQ Global, ASQ China, and ASQ Mexico; with ASQ WorldPartners® around the globe; and through its work with ANAB and RABQSA.
     The RABQSA organization has principal offices in Sydney, Australia, in the ASQ Building, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and in Seoul, Korea. They design, develop, and deliver personnel and training certification services for various industries, and work through more than a dozen regional offices in Asia, Europe and South America.
     The activities of iNARTE and RABQSA do not compete but are entirely complimentary, in that iNARTE has developed programs for certification of the hands on engineering communities, whereas RABQSA schemes are directed at assessors, auditors and inspectors. iNARTE programs are almost entirely “Qualification Based”; RABQSA schemes are, for the most part, “Competency Based”.
     This affiliation raises the profile of iNARTE in the global community. Becoming part of the ASQ, ANSI, ANAB, RABQSA family, exposes iNARTE to the upper echelon of international regulatory organizations and industry associations and is expected to provide new opportunities for significant growth.
     The affiliation will be a seamless process for iNARTE members. Existing iNARTE certification programs will continue to be administered as before and the status of iNARTE members will not change. The new EMC Design Engineer certification program remains on track for launch at the 2011IEEE International Symposium on EMC in Long Beach, where we will be offering the first certification examination in this new discipline, and taking applications from experienced design engineers for grandfathering into the program.

 

Valuable links:      https://www.narte.org,
                           https://www.rabqsa.com/                                                                                                                                                EMC

 



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