J
JodiB
Here is the first of a probably long series of questions from me, as I embark down the road of getting 10 labs accredited to ISO/IEC 17025....
Background: Our labs are part of a larger organization that provides products and services. The labs test (mostly) water samples drawn from customer sites. The work is either straight analysis or it's product performance testing.
The water samples are taken by company employees who are not lab personnel. The employee pulling the sample and requesting the analysis is typically doing this to monitor the effectiveness of our products or because he wants to know which of our products would be most effective for the conditions ( to improve our service delivery or win an account, etc.). The lab considers their customer to be the company employee requesting the sample analysis, not the external customer. All results are provided to the company employee. The lab exists to service the internal customer, who exists to service the external customer.
At what point does the lab responsibility start for accreditation purposes? At the sampling point, even when not done by the lab? As a company we recognize that we want to get a grip on proper capture, label, and transport of the samples to make sure that the lab can provide quality data results. So that's not the point. What I need to know is how far back do I have to document competency, sampling plans, etc. for accreditation purposes. At what point does the lab take ownership of this under their quality system? Is it from the receipt of sample?
Background: Our labs are part of a larger organization that provides products and services. The labs test (mostly) water samples drawn from customer sites. The work is either straight analysis or it's product performance testing.
The water samples are taken by company employees who are not lab personnel. The employee pulling the sample and requesting the analysis is typically doing this to monitor the effectiveness of our products or because he wants to know which of our products would be most effective for the conditions ( to improve our service delivery or win an account, etc.). The lab considers their customer to be the company employee requesting the sample analysis, not the external customer. All results are provided to the company employee. The lab exists to service the internal customer, who exists to service the external customer.
At what point does the lab responsibility start for accreditation purposes? At the sampling point, even when not done by the lab? As a company we recognize that we want to get a grip on proper capture, label, and transport of the samples to make sure that the lab can provide quality data results. So that's not the point. What I need to know is how far back do I have to document competency, sampling plans, etc. for accreditation purposes. At what point does the lab take ownership of this under their quality system? Is it from the receipt of sample?
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