On June 12, 2018, the first Certification Technology Exchange Seminar of China Certification and Accreditation Association (CCAA) was held in Tai'an. Changsheng Fei, Executive Vice President and Secretary of CCAA, attended the meeting and delivered a speech, in which he expressed the following views.

Today, the certification and accreditation industry held its first certification technology seminar. This is a period of national transformation in the industry, and certification and accreditation are proposed to further deepen the understanding of the essence of certification and accreditation, as well as further research and understanding of technology, in order to meet the development needs. At the same time, this also marks the official start of the construction of the certification discipline system.

China needs to enhance its certification technology in the process of transforming from a certified major country to a strong nation. So, what does authentication technology refer to, or what is the foundation of authentication technology? This question cannot be answered in one or two sentences, and there may be many possible answers. It is precisely because of this that research on authentication technology becomes very important. For the industry, promoting the development of certification technology is an inevitable requirement for building a certification powerhouse.

China's certification certificate issuance volume is now the world's largest, with a strong practical foundation. Now, it has proposed a strategic goal to move towards building a certification powerhouse. We must first understand that strong certification requires strong certification technology.

We have vigorously developed industry standards in the past year or two, applying for hundreds of projects every year, but only a few dozen have been approved for project approval. Why is there such a big gap? That is to say, our understanding of the certification technology is not yet sufficient for the content of this standard project proposal. The industry standards officially released by the State Administration for Market Regulation in the past two years are in single digits. Why? This is closely related to authentication technology. Everyone has enthusiasm, but how to transform this enthusiasm into operability does need to be studied. I participate in good case evaluation and exchange activities almost every year, but there is still a gap in how to extract the exchange results into certification technologies and replicate and promote them. Now, our communication activities have shifted to focusing on authentication technology, and more people should study from these aspects.

There is a phenomenon in the industry that focuses more directly on results and neglects the process. If the process of authentication technology is understood, the result should be a natural outcome, or in other words, an analytical method will be developed.

Now, we propose that certification should shift from following, running, and then leading, and the foundation of certification technology becomes very important. I believe that the foundation of certification technology is the series of standards in the qualification assessment toolbox. To study certification, it is necessary to clarify these basic documents in order to combine them with practice and achieve transformation and improvement.

Another point I want to make is that conducting research on technology certification should adhere to a problem oriented and demand-oriented approach. The China Certification and Accreditation Association has established the Certification Personnel Capability Evaluation Center, with the main purpose of integrating industry resources, enhancing the capacity building of certification personnel, building a certification and accreditation discipline system, talent training system, and scientific evaluation system, and achieving three transformations. What are the three transformations? It is the transformation of certification personnel from the original standard practice type to a disciplinary system, the transformation of personnel registration and evaluation from focusing on qualifications and experience to focusing on abilities, and the transformation of evaluation methods from singularity to scientificity.

Now, let me share my personal opinion on authentication technology. In 1979, ISO published a booklet called "Principles and Practices of Certification", which focused on the eight forms of certification, which is the fundamental theory of certification. In 2010, ISO published another book called "Building Trust through Conformity Assessment", which stated that all conformity assessment techniques should follow the same basic methods. This is called conformity assessment techniques, including specifications, evaluation, assessment, peer review, accreditation, reporting, compliance and certification, resolution of non conformities, declaration of conformity, conformity marking, supervision, etc. These 17 techniques constitute the certification technology system. By comparing these two books, one can discover the overall context of the transformation of authentication technology.

No matter how it changes, authentication cannot be discussed without the foundation of authentication technology. We need to rely on industry forces to enrich and develop certification technology, strengthen the study of the basic theory of the qualification assessment toolbox series standards, and then continuously build a certification technology exchange platform through thinking, summarizing, and refining, concentrating industry forces, and promoting the development of certification technology.