Journal of Water and Wastewater Science and Engineering

Journal of Water and Wastewater Science and Engineering

Evaluation of Laboratories Performance by Interlaboratory Comparisons: Reference Laboratory of Tehran Province Water and Wastewater Company

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Mahtab Bagheban 1
Noushin Sohrabnia 2
Fahimeh Mehranfar 3
Mohammadreza Shirazi 4
1 Director of Water and Wastewater Quality Monitoring and Supervising Center, Tehran Province Water and Wastewater Company, Tehran, Iran.
2 Head of Calibration and LIMS Department of Reference Laboratory, Tehran Province Water and Wastewater Company, Tehran, Iran.
3 Quality Control Expert, Tehran Province Water and Wastewater Company, Tehran, Iran.
4 Head of Microbiology Department of Reference Laboratory, Tehran Province Water and Wastewater Company, Tehran, Iran.
10.22112/jwwse.2023.396294.1364
Abstract
Reference laboratory of Tehran Water and Wastewater Company, with the aim of reducing the costs of water and wastewater laboratories, conducted the first interlaboratory comparison test in 2020 and the second interlaboratory comparison in 2021. The test was conducted according to the SO/IEC17043 standard and the OP105 instruction, and data analysis were performed according to the ISO13528 standard and the test methods were based on the Standard Methods of Water and Wastewater. In this research, from the results achived by 68 participants, analysis and evaluation of the laboratories' performance was done. The results of the uniformity test showed that all the physicochemical samples of water had good uniformity. According to the results, all parameters except pH were stable. The results showed that among the physicochemical parameters, the highest unfavorable performance of the participants is related to the chloride test and the lowest unfavorable performance is related to the sodium test. Overall, the performance of the participants is satisfactory. The implementation of two courses of interlaboratory comparisons showed that specialized laboratories have the ability to implement this program and analyze the results. Holding this test was also very effective in reducing laboratory costs.
Keywords
Proficiency Testing
Interlaboratory Comparsions
Robust Statistical Test
Laboratory Performance Evaluation
Water and Wastewater
 
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Journal of Water and Wastewater Science and Engineering
Volume 9, Issue 1
Spring 2024
Pages 59-70

  • Receive Date 10 May 2023
  • Revise Date 22 August 2023
  • Accept Date 28 August 2023