In many cases, suppliers and regulatory authorities will not accept test or calibration results from a lab that is not accredited.
There are many commonalities with the ISO 9000 standard, but ISO/IEC 17025 is more specific in requirements for competence and applies directly to those organizations that produce testing and calibration results and is based on more technical principles.
[1] Laboratories use ISO/IEC 17025 to implement a quality system aimed at improving their ability to consistently produce valid results.
Laboratories are therefore "accredited" under ISO/IEC 17025, rather than "certified" or "registered" by a third party service as is the case with ISO 9000 quality standard.
The first laboratory accreditation bodies to be established were National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) in Australia (1947) and TeLaRC in New Zealand (1973).
Typically these bodies encompass accreditation programs for management systems, product certification, laboratory, inspection, personnel and others: