Laboratory reference materials and certified reference materials

Analysts who use reference materials, and technical and quality staff who choose and approve them.

Relevant to both chemical and microbiological work, including reference strains.

The syllabus below is the standard shape of the course. It is adjusted to the matrices, methods and instruments you actually run, which is agreed before delivery rather than discovered on the day.

• The hierarchy

  CRM, reference material and in-house material, and what each supports

• Selection

  Matching matrix, concentration and measurand to your actual application

• The certificate

  Certified value, uncertainty, traceability statement, expiry and intended use

• Producers

  ISO 17034 accreditation and what it changes about the material’s standing

• Handling

  Storage, opening, subsampling, stability after opening and expiry in practice

• In-house materials

  Preparing, characterising and assigning values to your own

Courses are written around what a delegate can do afterwards, not what was presented to them. These are the outcomes this one is built to produce.

1. 01Select a reference material that supports the claim you intend to make with it.
2. 02Read a CRM certificate, including the uncertainty and the intended-use restriction.
3. 03Handle and store materials so the certified value still applies when you use them.
4. 04Prepare and characterise an in-house material where no CRM exists.

A matrix-matched CRM and a pure-solution standard support very different claims. Using the second to demonstrate accuracy in a difficult matrix is a common and expensive substitution.

The handling side is where certified value quietly stops being true — a hygroscopic material opened repeatedly in a humid room is no longer the material on the certificate.

Delivered over 1 day, at your site or at the laboratory, in English or Arabic. Sessions are built around real records, real data and real failures rather than slides of clause numbers, and the people delivering them spend the rest of the week doing the thing being taught.

Group size is agreed in advance — practical sessions are capped so that everyone works rather than watches. An attendance certificate is issued to each delegate on completion.

Ask about any subject not listed here. If it is not something we teach well, we will say so rather than build it for the sake of the booking.