Analyst (Lab Technician) validation in food laboratory

[AS Nur]

dear folks..

I am now working for Food laboratory.. and i want to make my lab be " competence lab"... our lab, analysis some parameters of food (protein, fat etc) and we use "accredited Method" such as kjedahl method for protein

but now i want to make "competence analys", and do you know how to validate lab analyst ? i 'll apreciated if you have excel template for that ...

Thanks for your valuable help...

 

[BradM]

Re: Analyst validation in food lab.

Glad you dropped by in!

I realize English is a Second Language, but it is somewhat difficult to ascertain your question.

The best I can gather, you are going to work for a company that analyzes food, and you are looking for a validation method for the process. Is that correct?

Or are you wanting to perform some analysis of the technicians to demonstrate competency? What is your requirement/guideline for needing to verify competency?

Sorry if I am nowhere near your query. Please feel free to repost more information.

 

[AS Nur]

Re: Analyst validation in food lab.

Glad you dropped by in!

I realize English is a Second Language, but it is somewhat difficult to ascertain your question.

The best I can gather, you are going to work for a company that analyzes food, and you are looking for a validation method for the process. Is that correct?

Or are you wanting to perform some analysis of the technicians to demonstrate competency? What is your requirement/guideline for needing to verify competency?

Sorry if I am nowhere near your query. Please feel free to repost more information.

dear BradM...

thank for your quick replay.. sorry if my letter is not very clear for you...
.. Actually I want to validate competency of lab technician (analyst) but I dont have any procedure or guideline to do that...

 

[True Position]

Re: Analyst validation in food laboratory

This is usually done by documenting training and validation of training. If you have standard lab methods, has the person been trained to the process? Have they showed that they understand? Do you have training records?

Often a matrix of lab personnel and testing they have been trained to is used, occasionally color coded to a few different levels. (Competent and could train someone else, can work with minimal supervision, requires moderate supervision, no training)

 

[AS Nur]

Re: Analyst validation in food laboratory

dear hawat...

thanks for the replay...I already have lab std methods and training procedure and record.. i need to validate competence of analyst.. i heard in pharmaceutical industry, now i working in Food industry, they used statistical method to validate the competence of analyst.. usually they using Z score or RSD.. but i am not realy clear what the reason of that... Can some body give me a light to see more clear about that procedure or guideline?

 

[mbulentcakar]

Hi As Nur and all,
There may be many ways. Basically validation of analyst is done by evaluating his/her training records and experience (It would be lack of conscience to validate analysts only by a statistical method).
But how to validate an analyst for any method, say for kjeldahl method, depends on your conditions. You may run a repetability reproducibility study (maybe you've already done that for method validation) and appy ANOVA for different analysts. If no significant differences than you can validate all analysts. This is a practical approach for start up laboratories.
For a new analyst, you may have a validated analyst and the new analyst to run a series of analysis with the same sample and then use t-test for comparison of means.
A more practical way is comparing the variance of new analyst (by f-test) with the values in the method validation, just be sure the sample used in retest be in the same range with the sample used in validation study.
Hope this helps,
Bulent

 

[AS Nur]

dear Bulent...

Thanks for your replay .. so... what is the best method to validate analyst , Is Z score or RSD or anova???
FYI.. i'll Plan to validate analyst ones a years ....

 

[mbulentcakar]

Hi,
I personally do not believe in 'best's and put my faith on 'fit for purpose'. If I were in your position I probably would run a yearly retest study for every test, probably for 6-10 repetitions starting from sample preparation and for technicians involved in that test. Then I would calculate %RSD (CV), means etc, which I would later incorporate with validation data and also I would update measurement uncertainty analysis.
But for validation I would run an ANOVA and then evaluate.
There's also another possibility if you're in any proficiency testing scheme. You can test the PT sample as usual and have other technicians also test the sample and evaluate after PT report.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Bulent.

 

[AS Nur]

thanks Bullent for enlightment me... i will go with my faith on "fit for purpose"...

 

[Basem]

hello,
I think to prove the competence of technical staff in ur lab you can simply let them run a reference material periodically or a traceable in house reference material and compare there results to the actual results of them.
But if you are running a control chart for the test method you can examine the competence of all the items of the test process including the technical analyst.
Hope it helps