In recent editions of SE I have asked searching questions about the evolution of ISO 17025 and the role of accreditation bodies. By chance, I received a copy of an article by Gary Price which suggested that here was someone else who wasn’t convinced by the status quo. I contacted him and found that he is a metrology specialist who has advised Australian governments on the measurement infrastructure requirements of modern chemical measurement. I felt that the readers of this column would enjoy and may like to comment on his views. I asked him to produce the following short review of the arguments presented in the main articles.—Peter Jenks
Quality Matters Columns
Editors: Chris Burgess, John Hammond and Peter Jenks
The Quality Matters column is dedicated to issues around reference materials and standards, including the underlying regulations that are of great importance to the majority of laboratories. Read more about the Column Editors.
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The 33rd meeting of the Reference Material Committee of ISO, ISO/REMCO was held in Hangzhou (China) from 3 to 7 May 2010, and was hosted by the Standardisation Administration of China and the China Association of Standardisation. ISO/REMCO now has a membership of 70 members of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and liaison with 18 international organisations and seven ISO-internal committees. The new ISO TC liaison introduced at this meeting is with ISO/TC 158 “Analysis of gases”, with Dr Adriaan van der Veen acting as the REMCO liaison officer.
Issue 22/4 (2010)
ISO Standard ISO 17025 is the cornerstone of the “Measured Once, Trusted Everywhere” concept and the accreditation of labs and testing establishment to ISO 17025 by accreditation bodies underpins the credibility. ISO 17025 is all about facilitating the free movement of goods and services and so helps to eliminate monopolies, cartels and all sorts of anti-competitive activities.
Issue 22/3 (2010)
Continuing the series of articles on spectroscopy, we return principally to the UV-visible area of the spectrum, but this time to the science of luminescence (fluorescence and phosphorimetry), in all its many forms. Given the diversity of the application areas and instrument types available, in such an article we can only briefly give an overview of the topic and interested parties are, therefore, recommended to follow-up the listed references for more in-depth discussion on the points raised.
Issue 22/1 (2010)
ISO 17025 has been with us now for 12 years and in some industry sectors it is getting hard to find a commercial laboratory offering chemical testing that is not accredited to ISO 17025 for some or all of its scope. In just 12 short years the importance of “quality management” to a laboratory has undergone a seismic shift.
A look back: where did ISO 17025 come from?
Issue 22/2 (2010)
John Hammond
Starna Scientific Ltd, 52–54 Fowler Road, Hainault Business Park, Hainault, Essex, IG6 3UT, UK
The Irish writer George Bernard Shaw once said: “England and America are two countries divided by a common language”. Whilst this statement generally refers to the over 4000 words in everyday use in the United States that are not in British English, in the scientific world “is it metre or meter”, or for spectroscopists, nanometre or nanometer?
Issue 21/6 (2009)
The 12th Biological and Environmental Reference Material symposium (BERM 12) is now over: held at Keble College, Oxford, UK, from 7 to 10 July 2009 it was, based on the feedback received, a resounding success, both scientifically and socially. The weather was perfect and the setting magnificent
Issue 21/5 (2009)
The summer of 2009 has been notable for two metrologically significant events: the annual meeting of the ISO REMCO Committee and the 12th BERM Symposium, neither of which has ever been held before in the UK. It is a massive credit to LGC that they were able to host both meetings and succeeded in making the BERM Meeting one of the best ever! In this column John Hammond, the UK Industry Delegate to ISO/REMCO, reports on the proceedings and decisions of the meeting. I’ll be reporting on BERM 12 in the next column and also explaining the relationship between the UK Reference Materials Working Group, the BSI and ISO/REMCO.
Issue 21/4 (2009)
Where is the accreditation of analytical laboratories taking the reference material producer industry? I’ve recently been cogitating the long term impact of the growing spread of ISO 17025 accreditation on the development and supply of certified reference materials and I’m concerned that the “quality business” is driving laboratory accreditation into areas where reference material producers will be under increasing pressure.
Issue 21/3 (2009)
Following on from our previous foray into the UV-visible area of the spectrum, in this article we discuss its nearest neighbour in the spectral scale, namely near infrared (NIR) spectrometry. The NIR spectral region lies between 780 nm and 2500 nm (4000 cm–1 to 12,800 cm–1) bridging the more well-known and analytically used regions of the UV-visible (190–780 nm) and the infrared (4000–600 cm–1).
Issue 21/2 (2009)
Christopher Burgess
Burgess Analytical Consultancy Limited, “Rose Rae”, The Lendings, Startforth, Barnard Castle, Co. Durham, DL 12 9AB, UK
John Hammond
Starna Scientific Ltd, 52–54 Fowler Road, Hainault Business Park, Hainault, Essex, IG6 3UT, UK/p>
Issue 21/1 (2009)
Peter J. Jenks
the Jenks Partnership, Newhaven House, Junction Road, Alderbury, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP5 3AZ, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
Issue 20/6 (2008)
As the column title rightly suggests Quality does Matter. The authors look at the major changes that have taken place over the last 50 years in four key areas: The National Metrology Institutes (NMIs), the instrument manufacturers, the user base and the globalisation of regulation through international regulatory bodies.
Issue 20/5 (2008)
Peter J. Jenks
the Jenks Partnership, Newhaven House, Junction Road, Alderbury, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP5 3AZ, UK
Issue 20/4 (2008)
In the first of our new Quality Matters columns (Issue 20/1), I introduced the new team of contributors and mentioned that John Hammond would be writing, from his position as the UK Industrial Delegate to the ISO-REMCO Committee, about the workings of that important body and looking to the future following some important decisions taken at the June 2007 meeting in Japan. This is his first of what will be a regular series of reports on the workings of REMCO.
Issue 20/3 (2008)
In the final RM Column, I concluded with the words “To cover this enhanced scope the editorial team will expand: there will be a couple of new names joining me in the preparation of the new column”. In this, the very first Spectroscopy Europe Quality Matters Column, I’m delighted to be able to announce our new columnists as Christopher Burgess and John Hammond.
Issue 20/1 (2008)
This is the 34th RM Column and over the last seven years we have looked at reference materials (RMs) from just about every possible angle and re-visited some topics more than once. Whilst we have focussed mainly on RMs, over time there has been a change in the way RMs are used and their importance to analytical laboratories.
Issue 19/6 (2007)
This may be the first time that Spectroscopy Europe has reported on political upheavals in the UK, but fall out from the departure of Mr Blair and the arrival of Mr Brown has led to reorganisations in Government departments, particularly those that look after research and innovation, including reference materials (RMs)!
Issue 19/5 (2007)
Peter J. Jenks
the Jenks Partnership, Newhaven House, Junction Road, Alderbury, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP5 3AZ, UK.
This article explains how BAS developed and maintained its pivotal position in the European iron and steel metrology community and explains in detail the important work done by its volunteers.
Issue 19/3 (2007)