Editorial.

It's hard to gauge if independent testing laboratories will benefit from the recently signed worldwide accord to reduce duplicate testing. The International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) has produced a mutual recognition arrangement (MRA) signed by 28 economies to remove some of the barriers to world trade.

The MRA basically states that test and calibration reports produced by accredited labs will be accepted by all of the other signatories. Products tested in one economy by an accredited lab will be more readily acceptable in other signatories' economies.

The MRA is utilizing the existing or developing regional arrangements which have been established in the Americas, the Asia Pacific region, Europe and South Africa. The regional bodies are responsible for maintaining the necessary confidence in accreditation bodies from their region. Each of the regional bodies use the same international standards, including ISO/IEC Guide 58 and ISO/IEC 17025.

This should help product manufacturers in cost and time and provide for greater market access. By eliminating duplicate testing, some test labs will lose some accounts. Whether the losses can be offset by an increase in exporting activity, we'll have to wait for the results. Manufacturers dealing with an accredited lab will find it easier to enter foreign markets and may increase their business with the lab.

Now that I've added ILAC and MRA to your lexicon, we are going to remove one - the popular testing term Shore. I heard that gasp from many of you. It's the same gasp heard when we dropped the B-word which was used to connote any mixer. But just like that deletion, you'll get over this. The problem with Shore, the B-word and DuPont's tradename for polychloroprene is that they are tradenames for certain products and don't represent all of the products of their type.

I know that Shore has been ingrained, but so has the B-word, and we carefully look for it because it appears frequently. The article concerning IRHD and durometer testing on page 39 had no less than 74 mentions of Shore. So when you read it and find durometer A, type D durometers or type M scale and find this awkward, remember it is being done for good reason. Not all durometers are manufactured by Shore.