THE IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN TRACE ANALYSIS

Quality assurance consists of all activities undertaken to produce data of evaluated quality. It consists of two separate but related activities: Quality Control - What is done to obtain data for acceptable quality, and Quality Assessment - What is done to evaluate the quality of the data produced. All sources of variability of the measurement process must be stabilized and optimized, consistent with the end use of the data. Bias control must be implemented as well. All of these become extremely critical in trace analysis. The major sources of imprecision and bias are presented. The elements of quality assessment are presented. Quality assurance must be extended to every operation that affects the final measured result if valid conclusions are to be made.