Well, unfortunately it is too often that some labs just know how to pass an audit, but when it comes to testing, they fall very short.
Far too many 'so called' good labs rely on instrumentation and simply do not question results. This leads to bad measurements, even though the lab is supposedly accredited. Dennis Ward Senior Certification Engineer PCTEST This communication and its attachments contain information from PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc., and is intended for the exclusive use of the recipient (s) named above. It may contain information that is confidential and/or legally privileged. Any unauthorized use that may compromise that confidentiality via distribution or disclosure is prohibited. Please notify the sender immediately if you receive this communication in error, and delete it from your computer system. Usage of PCTEST email addresses for non-business related activities is strictly prohibited. No warranty is made that the e-mail or attachment(s) are free from computer virus or other defect. Thank you. From: Kevin Robinson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, August 30, 2013 6:19 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PSES] 3rd party labs due-diligence Full disclosure, I used to work at a test lab, and I now work for a government regulator that audits test labs. In most cases, as Richard said, test labs, except for possibly your small local labs have accreditations from multiple accreditation bodies, all auditing to some variant of 17025/17065/Guide 65. This means that the labs are subject to audits 12 or more times a year. Now each audit may not cover the full scope that the laboratory has, but their core QA systems are generally being reviewed at each audit, and individual sectors (EMC, Safety, Performance etc.) are typically audited several times a year . Their systems are generally pretty tight, and staff have been trained and audited enough to make sure that they are following their own top level procedures for the most part. If you do audit, you might find a deficiency in corporate level procedures, but most will be relatively minor, and are attributed to human error/laziness. I tell people that ask me to visit your lab(s), talk to the engineers and your account reps. Ask them about the standards, perhaps pick a few sections that are confusing to you and ask them to explain them to you. It will become very obvious very quickly how knowledgeable they are in the standards, and if you are new to the world of testing, how well they are able to take a complex standard and break it down into something that you can understand. Take a tour of their facilities. Try to look past all of the glitz and focus on the condition of their storage areas and equipment. If things are neat and orderly, chances are, they will put the same effort into clearly and properly recording your test results. Also consider their corporate culture. Is the lab focused on customer service, clearly explaining things to you every step of the way, or are they extremely efficient and would prefer to just give you a report with little communication throughout the testing process. Find a lab that is a good fit for your personality and your corporate culture. As far as conducting an audit, when you have most labs being audited by ANSI, A2LA, IAS, NIST/NVLAP, FCC, FDA, OSHA/NRTL, Standards Council of Canada, Industry Canada, Verizon, AT&T, EPA, IECEE/CB Scheme and many others, chances are, you will not find any significant issues, especially if the lab has been with the same accreditors for many years. Kevin Robinson On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 4:39 PM, John Woodgate <[email protected]> wrote: In message <63e38a5b081437478c77651f3d56c64f57f4f...@orsmsx102.amr.corp.intel.com>, dated Fri, 30 Aug 2013, "Pettit, Ghery" <[email protected]> writes: I've found cases where the documentation was in good shape, indicating that the assessor understood ISO/IEC 17025, but the test setups were wrong, indicating that either the assessor didn't understand the EMC standards Quite often, I believe. In some cases, they defy understanding! or the lab went back to the way they were used to doing the test after the assessor left. Also quite often. In some cases, they may be right (as well as wrong). But I suppose the OP has enough experience to know about those issues. What I meant by my apparently facetious response is: 'Unless you have full confidence, don't go there'. -- OOO - Own Opinions Only. With best wishes. See www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Why is the stapler always empty just when you want it? John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. 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