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: 2016
Section: V1M5, Section 1.7.3.3
REQUEST:
My question is regarding the Test Variability/Reproducibility section in the new 2016 standard. The verbiage essentially states to perform for methods that specify counts (i.e., cfu/100 mL or MPN/100mL)..." or other methods which specify a quantitative result." My question is, was the intent to hold labs accountable for performing this for IDEXX Quanti-tray as well? It is an MPN method; however, I did not feel the intent was to perform for this method but rather other MPN methods (e.g., multiple tube fermentation). Furthermore, if a laboratory is not obtaining any positive samples over the course of a month using this method, would they still be required to perform one? Standard methods instructs to perform this for plate counting methods, so I wanted to make sure the intent as to what methods to hold labs accountable for.
TNI FINAL RESPONSE:
The standard is clear on the inclusion MPN methods and this does not exclude Quanti-tray. Furthermore, the STD states 'duplicate counts shall be performed monthly'. It would be up to the lab to determine how they obtain the positive sample with which to perform the counts.