What is a proficiency testing scheme?

ISO 17043 Proficiency testing schemes provide an objective way of assessing the performance (bias, stability, and repeatability) of laboratories by a series of regular inter-laboratory comparisons. Regular participation in a proficiency testing scheme is a requirement of ISO 17025 and needed by highly regulated industries such as the LNG and stack testing communities.

How the EffecTech® Proficiency Testing Schemes work

Each participating laboratory will receive ISO 17025 synthetic gas samples to analyse, appropriate to their requirements. Each laboratory then performs a routine analysis of the gas samples and reports back their analytical results to EffecTech, where the results are compared to the actual composition values.

The closeness of each laboratory’s results to the actual composition of the gas samples forms the basis of a quantitative assessment of their capability and performance. The full set of results for all laboratories are reported anonymously to the whole group, with each participant being made aware of the identity of their own result.