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: 5.4.2.6
Link to relevant standard
REQUEST:
This standard calls for "3) in-depth, periodic monitoring of data integrity". What is TNI's interpretation of "periodic"?
ELAP suggested "Each calendar quarter the QAO audits 5 % or 5 data packages, which ever is more" in the DI plan template we provide to labs. However, the monitoring should be dependent upon the lab's scope (chemistry, microbiology, asbestos) and workload (number of samples analyzed).
Does TNI leave it up to the lab to decide at what frequency they perform the monitoring?
Thank you.
TNI FINAL RESPONSE:
(Quality System Expert Committee/NELAP Accreditation Council, x-x-10)
There is no definition of periodic. The laboratory must clarify its intentions for complying with this requirement in the QAM or elsewhere. If the laboratory hasn't defined its requirements sufficiently, it could be cited for failure to comply with this section.