Newsletter #17

CORESTA meeting Kunming: Primoris on proficiency tests

Primoris stays true to a scientific and evidence-based approach to research and analysis. Furthermore, because of its great specialisation, Primoris also takes part in various working groups, the working group of CORESTA, the Cooperation Center for Scientific Research regarding Tobacco.

At the latest CORESTA Congres in Kunming (China), Hans Braeckman, head of Product Management at Primoris, presented a review of the innovation based on Proficiency Tests conducted by the CORESTA Agrochemical Analysis Sub-Group and its consequences for daily result interpretation in the tobacco sector.

The EU RL approach was used to assess overall lab performance in Proficiency Tests and its use to assess long term lab performance was demonstrated. Over the past decade, 55 labs participated in the CORESTA proficiency tests with an average of 25 participants per test. The evaluation showed that only 7-9 labs per proficiency test can be considered as high quality labs for GRL testing. The number of labs continuously showing high quality is even less!

Additionally, the consequences of proficiency test performance for daily results interpretation (comparing 2 results on the same sample or result comparison to CORESTA GRL) was demonstrated. The importance of high quality labs for good business decisions showed to be evident.