This guide is intended to provide guidance for an assessor to evaluate measurement practices of laboratories, their protocol for statistically analyzing the resulting data from these practices, and their statistical results from these practices.

This guide is generic in the sense that it covers the entire range of in-house quality measurement practices found in a testing laboratory, but the results of the described evaluation may be used by accrediting agencies if their requirements can be satisfied through the laboratory’existing quality data.

It is not the intent of this guide to serve as sole criterion for evaluating and accrediting laboratories. It is not intended to cover the important generic guidelines for evaluating the laboratory’ quality program which can be found in Practice E 548 and Guide E 994.

1.1 This guide covers key elements of an evaluation of a laboratory's measurement practices and the statistical analysis of the resulting data. This guide addresses an evaluation that covers a broad range of in-house quality measurements, some of which may be directly related to accreditation requirements.

1.2 This guide describes what to look for as documentation in order to verify the operation of the practices, and what parts of the data to test and interpret in order to verify the quality of data being generated by the laboratory.

1.3 This guide does not specify or provide guidance for the establishment or assessment of a quality program. Note 1Generic guidelines dealing with elements of a quality program may be found in ANSI, A1, A3, Q1, Q2, Z34.1; ISO9000-9004; and ILAC/ISO Collected Reports 1979-1983.