Quality Assurance

Quality assurance is a system of policies and procedures that, if appropriately designed, will guarantee a product of known, predictable attributes. To be effective this system must consider every aspect of operations including sales, customer interface, sample management, analytical practice, purchasing, human resources, publications and records management. Clearly, to be effective this system must be primary and must have its source point in upper management.

Quality control is a part of quality assurance. In an analytical laboratory, it is a simultaneous analytical process that runs in parallel with the determinative process. This dynamic process provides real-time feedback to the analyst so that data of known, documented and appropriate quality is provided to the end user.

Certification is a formal regulatory permit to provide analytical services in support of programs being overseen by the regulatory authority providing the certification. The number of possible certifications for environmental analytical laboratories is staggering. However, they all have similar criteria:

1. There is a fee.
2. The laboratory has been audited on-site to review adequacy of the QA program as well as test procedures.
3. The laboratory has obtained acceptable results for performance evaluation samples.

New England Testing Laboratory has a comprehensive QA Program and we are certified by NELAC and several state regulatory agencies. We use our QA program for its intended purpose; to make customer satisfaction automatic. Our QA program together with its quality control function has given us a reputation second to none in our industry. It has considerable impact on the success and reputation of our clients. It has made and will continue to make NETLAB a great place to work and practice environmental analytical science. But most of all it serves to safeguard the environment and human health. We are not manufacturing meaningless widgets. We are providing results that will be used by engineers and regulators to make critical, far reaching decisions. Our results had better be right.. and for that we are responsible.

Please review:

Our Quality Assurance Plan Document

Our Certifications