The international community uses proficiency testing as evidence of the competence of a laboratory. But many laboratories see proficiency test participation as just a requirement of the ISO/IEC 17025 standard rather than a very useful tool. Several years ago, I wrote an article about proficiency testing for an accrediting body. I asked the question: “Who do you want to tell you there is an error in your measurement results? Your PT provider or your customer.” Obviously, not your customer. Proficiency testing can be a valuable tool.
Things you should know about proficiency testing.
The following are definitions from ISO/IEC 17043:2023.
Proficiency Test (PT)
Evaluation of participant performance against pre-established criteria by means of interlaboratory comparisons.
Interlaboratory Comparison (ILC)
Design, performance and evaluation of measurements or tests on the same or similar items by two or more laboratories in accordance with predetermined conditions.
Assigned Value
Value attributed to a particular property or characteristic of a proficiency testing item.
Consensus Value
Value derived from a collection of results in an interlaboratory comparison.
The difference between PT and ILC is how the value of the measurements are derived. An assigned value in a proficiency test for calibration laboratories is one that is determined by calibrations from reference laboratories. This is a known value. A consensus value in an ILC is one that is derived from the data collected from the participants of a particular test (an average of all participants data, for instance).
In other words, a PT uses a known (assigned) value for each measurement, whereas an ILC may use a calculated (consensus) value.
The Proficiency Testing, Inc. Process
Our process is a PT where all measurements are known values as determined from one or more reference laboratories.
At Proficiency Testing, Inc., we have devised a unique process for providing test artifacts to our participants.
- Our test windows start on a Monday of your choice.
- Your lab has until the following Tuesday for return shipment.
- You are not required to ship the test kit to another laboratory.
- Preliminary reports are available through your secure portal, usually the same day as data submittal.
- Should you have outliers, as indicated on your preliminary report, you have time to investigate and correct the issue and resubmit your test results.
- Your corrective actions for outliers can be uploaded to your portal for easy access during your assessment.
- Our artifacts are calibrated by high accuracy, accredited reference laboratories rather than using consensus values based on the average of all participants.
- At the end of each test cycle, a complete report is issued to allow you to compare your results with other participants using you lab code.
- All reports issued by PTI bear the ANAB symbol indicating all requirements of ISO/IEC 17043:2023 are met.
For more information visit our website at www.proficiencytestinginc.com.
About Proficiency Testing, Inc.
The PTI project was started in 2021 with the purpose of devising PT schemes that provided participants with preliminary results before they had to send the artifacts to the next laboratory. Our kits are returned directly to us unless agreed in advance. Our aim is to have enough kits available to allow each participant adequate time to complete the testing without pressure to send to another laboratory.
PTI is proud to be accredited by ANAB to ISO/IEC 17043:2023. We were the first US proficiency test provider for calibration laboratories to be accredited to the latest edition of the standard.
Test kits are available in DC Low Frequency, Dimensional, Dimensional Inspection, Pressure and Vacuum, Torque, Force, Thermodynamics and Time and Frequency. Coming soon are RF devices and mass. See available kits.
Sample cylindrical plug gage, gage block and pressure / vacuum kits.
For more information and test descriptions, visit www.proficiencytestinginc.com , email us at sales@proficiencytestinginc.com or call 352-899-2064. To see test details and availability, you must register. There is absolutely no obligation to register. The link is www.proficiencytestinginc.com/client-registration.
