XRF Applications Blog

Monday, October 13, 2008

Quality Mag Article: calibrating correctly

I recently read an article at the Quality Magazine website that discussed calibration services and a few ideas on choosing a certification/calibration service.  The full article can be reviewed here, but a few excerpts and points of note follow…

From the article in italics (notes in bold):

Besides the fact that customers may mandate it, it may be beneficial to use a 17025-accredited laboratory because such facilities will have competent, highly trained technicians and will operate under standardized procedures and polices.

In the United States, 17025-accredited labs are awarded accreditation and then periodically assessed by accreditation bodies such as A2LA, NVLAP, ACLASS, IAS and L-A-B. These accreditation bodies are recognized by the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and signatories to the ILAC mutual recognition arrangement (MRA). Calibration laboratories that are accredited by such bodies possess international credence because their accreditation body has signed onto the ILAC MRA, which is a vehicle that promotes international acceptance of accredited calibration results.
          Eastern Applied Research, Inc is accredited to ISO/IEC: 17025 by L-A-B

All accredited laboratories, however, are not created equally, and a laboratory that offers a low price may also be offering a low-quality calibration.
            While Eastern Applied does pride itself on high-quality XRF Certification and Calibration Services in addition to XRF Standards related services; we also offer low-cost and efficient options because our customers demand a fare price and we have developed our organization so that we can offer low-cost on-site services while maintaining required performance and knowledge.

In addition, if an organization wants to use an accredited laboratory, it needs to be sure that the prospective laboratory is, in fact, accredited—a laboratory may say it is 17025 compliant, meaning that it adheres to the standard, but has never been assessed and validated by a qualified third party.
            Many of our competitors say that they are accredited, but do not have an outside service (L-A-B, A2LA, etc) assess their practices; Eastern Applied Research does!

Again, the full article can be reviewed here –

Until next time,

BM

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