Development and application of a standardized validation procedure for food chemistry laboratories

The development of a standard for method validation is a response to the requirements of many analysts facing to the preparation of validation report for accredited laboratories. The standard that was prepared with the French official standardization organization (Afnor) was very strictly defined. It consists in three different sets of measurements called design A, B and C. Each of these designs has its own goal, i.e. the computation or the comparison of validation characteristics. These characteristics are quite classical, but the originality of the standard consists in the definition of very precise statistical techniques. Moreover, these techniques were selected in order to implement them easily on any commercial spreadsheet software. The theoretical background of this standard is explained, an extensive example is presented and some explanations about the computer implementation are given. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.