For the determination of further objectives of the Czech CTL we proceeded from conclusions of the international seminar “Matthaeus” held in Madrid in September 1996 under the name “Customs laboratories in the year 2000”. This seminar was organised for representatives of customs laboratories of EU countries as well as for non-members as observers. There was clearly declared the necessity of the creation of unified European system of customs laboratories. The basic requirement for the formation of co-operation of customs laboratories of European countries is creation of a quality system (QS) in line with EN 45 001 (now EN ISO/IEC 17025) with the aim to receive the certificate of accreditation for chosen testing methods.
The accreditation is very important for the confidence in the provided services and mutual recognition of the test result. The creation of a Quality System is a challeng and means active participation of all staff members in this process and especially understanding its purpose and importance. After 1996 started Czech CTL's this work on preparation of the Quality System with higher intensity. There was established the position of Quality Manager. Under his co-ordination were documented all technical and administrative activities of the CTL into the Quality Manual and collection of related documents containing all laboratory activities. The structure of organisation of CTL was formed and further position such as e.g. Technical manager, administrator LIMS, Tariff specialist and Metrologist were established.
After more than one-year effort two groups of testing methods for accreditation were prepared. The first group concerns tests of alcohol, alcoholic and non-alcoholic products and the other was reffered to the tests of petroleum products - fuels and lubricants. In October 1997 after the audit executed by specialists of Czech accreditation body CTL received the Certificate of accreditation for these testing methods.
Quality system is to be developed and persistently updated. One possibility how to do it is to arrange its certification according to EN ISO 9001. For that reason CTL proceeded revision of all documentation into the form where basic activities were illustrated by flow diagrams of single laboratory processes with responsibilities of staff assigned – a process based approach was applied into CTL. The certification was performed by RWTÜV (now TÜV NORD Czech, Ltd.), which has international field of activity. CTL achieved this prestigious certificate in the year 1999. Then, in the year 2008 the Czech Customs Administration achieved the certification of the entire work with samples including sampling.