The North American Calibration Cooperation (NACC) was formed in 1994. It was re-established in 2001 as the North American Calibration Committee, under the same acronym, to develop and maintain mutual confidence in the measurements made by calibration laboratories accredited under the respective national accreditation systems of the three countries. The parties intend to promote close collaboration amongst the calibration laboratory accreditation and assessment systems they have implemented or intend to implement.

The parties to this agreement are the National Metrology Institutes and the recognized representatives of the laboratory accreditation systems of the three countries.

The Standards Council of Canada (SCC) and the entidad mexicana de acreditación (ema), in Canada and Mexico respectively, accredit calibration laboratories. The National Cooperation for Laboratory Accreditation (NACLA), in the United States, does not accredit laboratories but rather administers a program that recognizes the competence of accreditation bodies to accredit calibration laboratories. For this agreement NACLA will be considered as the representative of the accreditation bodies for calibration laboratories of United States of America.

The recognized accreditation bodies of each country rely on the use of accredited calibration laboratories to provide support to all accredited test and calibration laboratories for the purpose of ensuring the traceability of measurement results to the realizations of the SI units of measurement (or to other appropriate stated references). SCC, ema, and NACLA are responsible for maintaining appropriate linkages with their respective National Metrology Institute (NMI) to ensure the validity of the chain of traceability and of the technical expertise used in the process of accrediting calibration laboratories.

NACC Guidance Document G 001

The  NACC Guidance Document G 001 offers brief descriptions of the roles of laboratory accreditation, the mutual recognition arrangements amongst laboratory accreditation bodies, and the mutual recognition arrangement amongst national metrology institutes as they relate to issues of traceability of measurement results.