Conformity assessment, also known as compliance assessment ^{, ,} , is any activity to determine, directly or indirectly, that a process, product, or service meets relevant technical standards and fulfills relevant requirements.

Conformity assessment activities may include:

• Testing
  Test method
  A test method is a definitive procedure that produces a test result.A test can be considered as technical operation that consists of determination of one or more characteristics of a given product, process or service according to a specified procedure. Often a test is part of an experiment.The test...
  
  
• Surveillance
  Surveillance
  Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...
  
  
• Inspection
  Inspection
  An inspection is, most generally, an organized examination or formal evaluation exercise. In engineering activities inspection involves the measurements, tests, and gauges applied to certain characteristics in regard to an object or activity...
  
  
• Auditing
• Certification
  Certification
  Certification refers to the confirmation of certain characteristics of an object, person, or organization. This confirmation is often, but not always, provided by some form of external review, education, assessment, or audit...
  
  
• Registration
• Accreditation
  Accreditation
  Accreditation is a process in which certification of competency, authority, or credibility is presented.Organizations that issue credentials or certify third parties against official standards are themselves formally accredited by accreditation bodies ; hence they are sometimes known as "accredited...
  
  

Additionally, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) governs conformity assessment through the Agreement on Mutual Recognition in Relation to Conformity Assessment (Signed July 4, 2000)

Standardization

The international standards of the topic are published by ISO and covered in the divisions of ICS 03.120.20 for management and ICS 23.040.01 for technical . Other standalone ISO standards for the topic include

• ISO/TR 13881:2000 Petroleum and natural gas industries—Classification and conformity assessment of products, processes and services
• ISO 18436-4:2008 Condition monitoring and diagnostics of machines—Requirements for qualification and assessment of personnel—Part 4: Field lubricant analysis
• ISO/IEC 18009:1999 Information technology—Programming languages—Ada: Conformity assessment of a language processor

See also

• Conformance testing
  Conformance testing
  Conformance testing or type testing is testing to determine whether a product or system meets some specified standard that has been developed for efficiency or interoperability....
  
  
• Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance
  Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance
  Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance or GRC is the umbrella term covering an organization's approach across these three areas. Being closely related concerns, governance, risk and compliance activities are increasingly being integrated and aligned to some extent in order to avoid conflicts,...
  
  
• Quality infrastructure
  Quality infrastructure
  Quality infrastructure relates to all fields of metrology, standardization and testing, of quality management and conformity assessment, including certification and accreditation...
  
  
• Standards organizations