Quality Assurance
Columbia Analytical's comprehensive quality assurance and ethics programs ensure that the data produced by our laboratories will be of known quality, scientifically sound, legally defensible and accurately documented. We require compliance with our written quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) protocols. Each activity in the analytical process critical in the production of quality data follows written procedures, including sampling, analysis, data review, report preparation, and report delivery.
QA/QC Program
Columbia Analytical maintains a comprehensive QA/QC program at each of our laboratories, which are described in laboratory-specific quality assurance manuals (QAM). Each QAM meets the requirements of various QA/QC programs under which that laboratory is certified. For instance, each laboratory QAM meets the program requirements of NELAC for NELAP accreditation, various Department of Defense entities (Air Force, Navy, Army Corps of Engineers, etc.) as well as the different state programs and various client programs under which it is certified. Our enhanced QA/QC system includes:
- Comprehensive data checklists
- Extensive data and electronic tape audits
- Before and after manual integration documentation
- Detailed integration SOPs and calibration policies
- Independent external audits, all of which complement a strong ethics program to eliminate technical risks and provide documented high quality data
- QA system and our ethics program audited and reviewed by the US EPA
ACIL Seal of Excellence Awards
Columbia Analytical has received ACIL Seal of Excellence awards for each of its laboratories. The ACIL (American Council of Independent Laboratories) provides users with a mechanism for evaluating environmental testing laboratories. Participants are committed to ensuring the integrity of data, meeting customer's quality needs and setting the standards of performance for the testing laboratory industry.
To be eligible for this achievement, a laboratory must maintain proof of an annual ethics training and early detection system for improper analytical practices, submit a signed code of ethics and twelve months of Proficiency Testing (PT) scores, and distribute satisfaction surveys to their customers.
The participants have commited to a uniform code of ethics and provide performance evaluation data and customer survey data for comparison to other participants. The Seal of Excellence participants demonstrate they are proud of the quality they achieve and always operate with customer service as a top priority.
The award is presented to laboratories scoring greater than 90 percent on the combined average of all the PT studies for the previous 12 months and ranked better than three (out of four) on overall customer satisfaction and timeliness as measured by the Seal of Excellence Survey.
All of our laboratories have been awarded the ACIL Seal of Excellence each year with the signed the ACIL Data Integrity Statements. Our laboratories have also received special recognition for customer satisfaction, timeliness and proficiency testing. Our laboratories are NELAP accredited and have many state and federal certifications, which are listed in our Certifications Table.
Ethics Program
We are proud of our unprecedented network-wide ethics program. This program was developed in order to ensure procedures were implemented to assure the highest level of integrity from our employees. Our program has been used as a model for a nationwide ACIL ethics training program and includes the following:
- A company-wide proper practices program
- Extensive, mandatory eight-hour ethics training session
- Mandatory ethics refresher courses for every employee from the bench level employee to the CEO
- Signed data integrity statements by all employees each year
- Open door policy, ombudsman program and zero tolerance policy
- Our Chief Quality Officer and Ethics Officer report directly to the Board of Directors
- Membership to the Ethics & Compliance Officer Association and the Institute for Global Ethics
