Where do you start the transition?
With two dates and one text: the date of your next SEMAC assessment, the date the transition ends, and ISO/IEC 17020:2026 purchased and read in full. SEMAC (Service marocain d’accréditation) is Morocco’s accreditation service, under the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Under its procedure A 110.03, the first surveillance takes place no later than twelve months after the accreditation decision, then every fifteen months. Before the end of March 2029, you will therefore face only one or two assessments. Prepare the transition for the next one.
As of 6 November 2026, SEMAC has not published its transition end date. Our registry gives 31 March 2029; SAC and Cofrac give 27 March 2029, INAB 30 March 2029. Ask SEMAC for its date in writing before you fix your plan.
Set up a small team: the quality manager, the technical manager, one experienced inspector per main field and a member of management who arbitrates. Then draw up a backward schedule. The markers below are indicative; they count back from the date of the assessment.
Step | Indicative marker | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|
1. Reading the standard and scoping | Now | Team, backward schedule, standard distributed |
2. Gap analysis | First month of the project | Prioritised table of gaps |
3. Type A or non-A classification | Alongside the gap analysis | Classification note per field |
4. Impartiality, risks and opportunities | Straight after | Register and analysis of the risks of inspections |
5. Revision of procedures and tools | No later than six months before the assessment | Procedures, templates, validated tools |
6. Staff training | Before the new rules apply | Training records |
7. Internal audit and management review | At least two months before the assessment | Audit report, review minutes, actions closed |
How do you run the gap analysis?
Requirement by requirement, against the 2026 text, noting for each one the evidence the assessor will ask for. The Irish accreditation body INAB, in its notice NF49, lists what it expects from a body: review the new standard in full, conduct a gap analysis, develop a documented transition plan, update the management system, train staff, then submit this evidence with the transition application.
Two public aids save time. Note INS INF 35 from Cofrac, the French accreditation body, cross-references the clauses of the 2012 and 2026 editions and comments on the new requirements. Australia’s NATA offers a Gap Analysis between the two editions and an Implementation Checklist, both downloadable from its website. Neither replaces the text.
The working table fits in six columns:
2026 requirement | 2012 equivalent | Type of gap | Evidence expected | Owner | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
6.1 Documented competence management process | 6.1 Personnel | Strengthened requirement | Procedure, matrix, authorisations, supervision records | Technical manager | To be set |
7.5 Control of data and information | No equivalent requirement | New requirement | List of tools, validation files, backup rules | Quality manager | To be set |
7.7 and 7.8 Appeals and complaints | 7.5 and 7.6 | Changed requirement | Two procedures, public information | Quality manager | To be set |
8.4 Risks and opportunities | No equivalent requirement | New requirement | Documented analysis, actions, follow-up | Management | To be set |
The correspondences in this table follow Cofrac’s reading. Sort each gap into three families: new requirement, changed requirement, and unchanged requirement that is poorly applied today. The third family is often the longest: the transition assessment is also an assessment in its own right.
How do you redo the analysis of risks to impartiality?
By starting again from scratch, field by field, rather than adding to the old analysis. According to the Singapore Accreditation Council (SAC), the 2026 edition requires risks to impartiality to be identified, documented and monitored on an ongoing basis. The SEMAC file already asks for impartiality documents, meaning the risk analysis and commitments, under document AI 411.
The method in five stages:
- List the body’s links: shareholders, group, funding, contracts, other activities (design, maintenance, sales, advice, training).
- List the staff’s links: previous employers, family ties, other jobs, how they are paid.
- Cross each link with each field of the scope and state the risk: who could influence which conclusion, and how.
- Decide on one measure per risk: recusal, rotation, second signatory, separation of functions, refusal of an assignment.
- Choose an indicator and a review frequency, then name who follows it.
According to Cofrac, the 2026 edition groups personnel commitments in a single requirement: use the overhaul to have up-to-date commitments signed, covering impartiality, confidentiality and the declaration of links.
Do not forget the second, separate analysis: the risks and opportunities linked to inspection activities (a separate requirement according to Cofrac). It deals with whatever threatens the validity of a result: an inspector not qualified for a field, equipment not checked, an outdated checklist, lost data, a failing subcontractor.
Which procedures should you revise?
About a dozen, based on the gaps Cofrac flags. The table is a starting list; your gap analysis may add to it.
Procedure or document | What changes |
|---|---|
Independence classification | Type A or non-A per field, justified |
Impartiality and commitments | Live register, commitments grouped |
Insurance and internal contracts | Cover based on a risk analysis; contracts with the other entities of the group |
Competence management | Documented process, supervision that conditions authorisations |
Equipment | Fitness for use maintained, conformity checked, metrological traceability |
External providers | Selection, evaluation, monitoring; client agreement to subcontracting |
Review of requests and contracts | Acceptance according to resources, handling of deviations from the contract |
Inspection methods | Planned development, defined content, validation of non-standard methods |
Data and IT tools | Equipment identified, changes traced, original files kept, tools validated |
Reports and certificates | Templates reviewed, simplified reporting possible with the client’s agreement |
Appeals and complaints | Two separate processes, made available to the public |
Corrective action | Recall and rework of inspections if a nonconformity is found after the event |
Internal audits and management review | All activities and all premises, at planned intervals |
The table follows Cofrac’s correspondence table between the 2012 and 2026 editions; the text of the standard, a paid document, prevails.
How do you prepare for the transition assessment?
By showing a system that already works to the 2026 edition, with dated evidence. Three actions come before the assessment:
- a full internal audit against the 2026 edition, by an auditor independent of the activities audited, who follows at least one inspection in each field, from request to signed report;
- a management review that uses the impartiality indicators and the risk analysis, and decides on resources;
- a written exchange with SEMAC, which, under procedure A 110.03, writes to the body no later than three months before a surveillance to ask for its significant changes and its documentation.
Plan the handling of findings too. The same procedure gives six weeks to close nonconformities raised at surveillance, failing which suspension may be proposed. Cofrac allows, for the new requirements only, until the end of October 2028. As of 6 November 2026, SEMAC has not published a deadline specific to transition assessments: plan on the six weeks of its procedure, and ask it the question.
The mistakes we see most often:
- Waiting for the last assessment before the deadline to make the transition.
- Copying a list of changes found online instead of reading the standard.
- Classifying the body as a whole instead of classifying each field.
- Writing an impartiality register with no indicator and no review.
- Leaving spreadsheets and field apps out of tool validation.
- Having the transition audited by the person who led it.
Transition checklist:
The context and the changes clause by clause are in our ISO/IEC 17020:2026 inspection body guide, the accreditation bodies’ dates in the ISO/IEC 17020:2026 transition timeline, and the effect on the budget in ISO/IEC 17020 accreditation cost and duration. Our ISO standards training prepares managers, inspectors and internal auditors for the 2026 edition. For Moroccan employers who enter it in their training plan, it may qualify for special training contracts (CSF) run by OFPPT (Office de la formation professionnelle et de la promotion du travail, Morocco’s vocational training office), with no guaranteed amount.