Conformance testing

Conformance testing or type testing is testing to determine whether a product or system or just a medium complies with the requirements of a specification, contract or regulation. This may apply to various technical terms as well as to pure formal terms with respect to obligations of the contractors. Conformity assessment, also known as compliance assessment, is any activity to determine, directly or indirectly, that a process, product, or service meets relevant technical standards and fulfills relevant requirements.

Conformity assessment activities may include:

Additionally, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) governs conformity assessment through the Agreement on Mutual Recognition in Relation to Conformity Assessment (Signed July 4, 2000)

Testing is often either logical testing or physical testing. The test procedures may involve other criteria from mathematical testing or chemical testing. Beyond simple conformance other requirements for efficiency, interoperability or compliance may apply.

To aid in the aim towards a conformance proof, various test procedures and test setups have been developed, either by the standard's maintainers or external auditing organizations, specifically for testing conformance to standards. Conformance testing is performed preferably by independent organizations, which may be the standards body itself, to give sound assurance of compliance.

Products tested conformance may then become advertised as being certified by the testing organization as complying with the referred technical standard. Service providers, equipment manufacturers, and equipment suppliers rely on such qualified data to ensure Quality of Service (QoS) through this conformance process.

Conformance testing is applied to various areas of application, as e.g.

In all such testing the subject of test is not just the formal conformance in aspects of e.g.

but especially the aspects of e.g.

Hence conformance testing leads to a vast set of documents and files that allow for re-iterating all performed tests.

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