ISO 17025 requires that laboratories "have technical management which has overall responsibility for the technical operations". However, the standard does not specify any requirements for the background and education of those assigned to this role. This is disconcerting as they presumably are tasked with ensuring the quality of the measurement results produced by the laboratory as well as "the competence of all who operate specific equipment, perform tests and/or calibrations, evaluate results, and sign test reports and calibration certificates," as the standard also requires. In the absence of competent technical management, the responsibility for ensuring the integrity of the measurements performed by the laboratory can move in one of two different directions: It can be left to the laboratory technicians, as suggested by the Certified Calibration Technician credentials offered by ASQ, or it can be handed off to assessors or proficiency testing providers. The problem with the first approach is that while a technician may be very good at applying a measurement or calibration procedure, he or she often does not have the necessary background in mathematics and physics to account for all the potentially significant sources of uncertainty in a measurement and properly quantify their influence on the measured value in each particular case. The problem with relying on third parties to determine a laboratory's measurement capabilities (as opposed to merely evaluating or confirming the laboratory's own determination of its capabilities), is that it takes away the laboratory's ownership and responsibility for its own measurement processes.
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