Quality Assurance—Ethics
Regan McMorris, Senior Scientist
ASL consultancy services: audits, evaluations, and laboratory development
Senior ASL staff members are available to help clients with a variety of laboratory evaluation and development services. Several of our municipal and industrial clients operate their own laboratories for the purposes of process control, environmental monitoring, and discharge compliance. Currently, there is a greater emphasis on detailed process control and increased specificity in effluent constituent measurements. Because of this, our clients call on ASL to help them develop enhanced laboratory capabilities, including improved methodologies, processes, equipment, facilities, skills, quality control, and information management.
Laboratory facilities represent both a liability and a considerable, ongoing capital investment, and laboratory owners rely on periodic audits to ensure compliance with performance standards. We often find that our client managers and stakeholders take a proactive approach and ask us to perform a third-party audit well in advance of a regulatory inspection or as part of their internal development. These laboratory audits are typically detailed inspections of management, administration, methodologies, quality control, work flow, documentation, information systems, and personnel by an unbiased expert. However, in some cases, our customers just want a focused audit of some aspect of their laboratory’s operation, such as an in-depth review of a specific analytical methodology.
ASL has a number of staff members who are experienced in conducting laboratory evaluations and assisting with laboratory development programs. These people have actually worked at the laboratory bench and, in most cases, have laboratory management experience. Simply, ASL provides the appropriate combination of industry knowledge, technical skills, and operational experience in laboratory consultancy. Our consultants have worked for clients in a variety of municipal and industrial settings.
Below is a list of recent ASL consultancy projects:
- Developing a laboratory program to support a large wastewater treatment pilot plant at a Middle-Eastern petrochemical facility
- Developing a comprehensive data acquisition program, developing an automated data collection/information management system, and providing implementation and operator training
- Auditing a municipal drinking water microbiology laboratory and providing enhanced documentation development
- Evaluating and developing a quality control plan for monitoring industrial process emissions
- Developing water quality and bitumen laboratory programs, developing and implementing a laboratory information and management system (LIMS), providing training, and performing comprehensive system audits at a petroleum industry (oil sands) site
- Auditing a municipal wastewater plant general laboratory, including program evaluation and recommendations for enhancements
- Reviewing quality control audits and analytical methods for product stewardship laboratories (e.g., lead in textiles and other consumer products) in Asia
- Auditing a municipal drinking water laboratory, including work flow analysis and staffing evaluation and recommendations
For more information on these and other ASL laboratory consultancy capabilities, please contact Senior Scientist Regan McMorris at +1.541.768.3119.