Quality control in a university laboratory : a study of ISO/IEC-17025 implementation in the thin section laboratory

Abstract: Quality management systems in research and teaching laboratories are difficult to implement due to various reasons and factors. The benefits that the implementation of such systems bring to testing and calibration laboratories make a compelling case for their deployment in teaching and research laboratories as well. The Thin Section laboratory, based at Wits University’s School of Geosciences is a research and teaching laboratory. The laboratory has funding and quality challenges and has to find ways of supplementing the grant it receives from the University. One of the ways identified is providing commercial testing services to other sectors. Testing and calibration laboratories are required to conform to ISO/IEC 17025:2005 standard which is the general requirements for the competence of calibration and testing laboratories. The Thin Section laboratory will have to comply with this standard to improve the quality of the products and to be able compete with other testing laboratories. Making use of laboratory experiments, surveys and interviews, this study aimed to evaluate the gap between the Thin Section laboratory processes and ISO/IEC 17025:2005 requirements, assess the ISO/IEC 17025 implementation challenges for such laboratories and evaluate the possible benefits of implementing such a system. The study found the gap between ISO/IEC 17025:2005 requirements and laboratory procedures to be wide but also recommended solutions to overcome implementation difficulties particular to this laboratory setting and narrowing the identified gap. This study also found that the benefits of implementing ISO/IEC 17025 in this laboratory will, in the long run, outweigh the cost associated with implementation. The findings of this study can be utilised by other teaching and research laboratories, who have intentions of implementing ISO/IEC 17025, to identify challenges inherent with this type of environment and how best to overcome them.M.Tech. (Operations Management