develop consensus standards for use by TNI's programs. This group has a support role in assisting other programs with activities such as guidance and standards interpretation.
fosters the generation of data of known and documented quality is through the National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program, or NELAP. The purpose of this program is to establish and implement a program for the accreditation of environmental laboratories.
is to establish and maintain a national PT program to support TNI’s National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program, and other activities.
Field Activities Program (NEFAP) Executive Committee is to establish and implement an accreditation program for field sampling and measurement organizations (FSMOs).
Audit Sample Program is to develop consensus standards for the manufacture and analysis of audit samples for source emission testing.
on a variety of topics of interest to the environmental measurement community. TNI also hosts two regularly scheduled meetings per year, typically in January and August. Both are a week long and involve open meetings of TNI committees as well as training courses and other special sessions.Standard Interpretation
Standard: 2003 NELAC
Section: 5.4.9.1, 5.4.10.6 (b), 5.5.5.2.2.1 (d), 5.5.10.3.1 (a)
REQUEST:
ICVs have historically been treated as CCVs, in that high-biased failures and samples with no target compounds did not require reanalysis. It has been noted in a previous audit that this is not acceptable even though there would be qualifications on the final client report. Why would this practice not be acceptable?
TNI FINAL RESPONSE:
(Quality Systems Expert Committee and NELAP AC, 4-7-14)
If the Initial Calibration Verification (ICV) does not pass the established acceptance criteria for the calibration technique used, the calibration curve is not valid and corrective actions must be documented and samples reanalyzed. An ICV is not is not the same as a Continued Calibration Verification (CCV), and should not be evaluated against the CCV acceptance criteria.