Course Information
Course Title: Laboratory Accreditation: Meeting the Technical Requirements
Categories: 1 - Quality/Regulatory/Compliance
Instructor(s): Bernard King Course Number: 76
Affiliation: Consultant
Course Date: 03/12/2012 - Monday Course Length: 1 Day Course
Start Time: 08:30 AM End Time: 05:00 PM
Fee: $455 ($655 after 2/13/12) Textbook Fee:

Course Description
Laboratories seeking accreditation, or scheduled for reassessment, are under continuing pressure to meet more exacting technical requirements, as detailed in ISO/IEC 17025 and related laboratory accreditation standards. This course provides a review of the requirements, with emphasis on the newer requiremnets related to the following: The selection and validation of methods; Establishing the traceability of measuremnets and the selection and use of reference materials; The evaluation of measurement uncertainty. The course will address the question of 'how much is enough' and provide access to the latest international guides on technical and policy issues. It will comprise a mixture of presentations, exercises and group discussions and a comprehensive set of course notes will be provided.

Target Audience
The course is intended for analysts and their managers, who are seeking accreditation, or updating their QA systems, but will also be of interest to accreditation assessors, policy makers and teachers. The course starts at the beginning, but covers a lot of material and will be most useful to delwgates with some knowledge of at least some of the topics.

Course Outline
Overview of accreditation requirements
Selecting a method and planning validation
Calibration, traceability and reference materials
Matrix effects and bias evaluation
Precision (repeatability and reproducibility)
Ruggedness testing
Sensitivity, range and limit of detection
Estimating measurement uncertainty
Documentation review
Quality control and proficiency testing

Course Instructor's Biography
As a past Director at the Laboratory of the Government Chemist in the UK and the National Analytical Reference Laboratory of Australia, I have experience of a wide range of chemical analysis and laboratory management in the environment, food, forensic, industrial and medical sectors. I have also been extensively involved with international affairs relating to analytical quality, standards, and accreditation. In recent years I have provided over fifty courses and consultancy in manyparts of the world. The topics covered include measurement uncertainty, method validation, reference materials, accreditation and statistics.