ENAMA “Certification” of the inspection workshop activity: the necessary requirements.

In European Directive 128/2009/EC it is stated that “each Member State shall establish certificate systems designed to allow the verification of sprayers inspections”, but no further indications are provided on how to make such certifications. In Italy the ENAMA (National Board for Agricultural Mechanization) working group – established to co-ordinate the sprayers inspection activities at national level – has prepared a specific document containing the guidelines on how to get, on a voluntary basis, an ENAMA certification which attests the conformity of test equipment and of test procedures adopted in the inspection workshops. In this document directions are reported on how to assess the conformity of the inspection workshops to a set of listed requirements, referred either to other ENAMA documents, or to the National Action Plan, or to ISO/IEC 17020. The ENAMA certification of conformity therefore represents an added value for the sprayers inspection and calibrations Workshops as it ensures, through periodical inspections, that workshops apply the correct administrative (e.g. management of data and record of test reports) and technical procedures in their inspection activity and that they use appropriate test equipment and instruments. In this paper the requirements needed to get and to maintain over time the ENAMA certification of conformity are described.