Laboratories participating in GLEMP’s performance evaluation (PE) program are able to cost-effectively demonstrate their quality analytical capabilities to their customers and potential customers represented by GLEMP’s member companies. In many cases, GLEMP participation will supplant the need to support numerous one-off client-driven programs which actually provide them with minimal value and limited information. Thus, a GLEMP-participating laboratory has the potential to reduce their client support costs and generate tangible net savings.
The idea of using inter-laboratory studies to evaluate laboratory performance has received widespread application in only the past fifteen years. The first ISO Harmonized Protocol was issued in 1990. Proficiency testing (PT) is essentially using inter-laboratory round-robin or “ring studies” to evaluate the performance of laboratories in a critical manner using an established set of agreed statistical protocols. Proficiency testing (PT) programs by design judge laboratory performance and determine acceptability based upon the established statistical standard.
In contrast to proficiency testing (PT), performance evaluation (PE) programs provide more information about overall laboratory and method performance through comprehensive data reporting and do not judge the adequacy of the performance of any laboratory. The concept behind proficiency testing (PT) is judgment against a standard while the concept behind performance evaluation (PE) is laboratory quality improvement through fair, accurate, inter-laboratory comparison against peer laboratories to establish relative performance and improve quality assurance.