QC Review Operations

The quality control (QC) manager needs to keep abreast of laboratory performance. Laboratories that operate in the production environment also need to keep track of production quality.

As well as monitoring the process, the laboratory needs to monitor its ability to generate a correct result. This may mean checking the calibration or drift of analytical instruments by regularly analysing what CCLAS refers to as "standards". As jobs are registered and the samples are sent for analysis, QC samples are placed along side, and are often made from, the unknown samples sent from the client. As a QC sample receives a result, a copy of the result is stored in the QC History table as a single observation for that QC type.

The QC application provides the chemist with the ability to calculate analytical accuracy, based on the standard samples included within normal analytical work. It can be used to review the data of standard samples stored in the quality control history tables. Graphical representation of the data is also supplied. This application is useful aid in monitoring and refining existing schemes, or quantitatively evaluating new methods. Information gained from this analysis can be fed back to more finely turn the quality control checks. The Standard tables can be updated after careful statistical analysis is carried out.

The SPC application provides real-time feed back as to the quality of samples from production. Unknown samples are associated with products so that the results of the samples are compared against the product limits. As each sample (or type) is analysed by the On-line or Data Entry applications, the SPC charts that contain the various statistical data based on the analytical results are updated with that latest result.

The main difference between a Standard and a Product is that a product has upper and lower limits, while a Standard has a statistically expected result, with a variation that should follow a normal distribution around the expected result.