Technical records and raw data management

Everyone who writes in a laboratory record — analysts, technicians, supervisors — and the quality staff who audit them.

Short, practical, and built around real records rather than clause numbers. Most of the day is spent looking at records that would and would not survive scrutiny.

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.

• What a technical record is

  The distinction between raw data, derived data and the report

• Sufficiency

  Recording enough that the result can be reproduced from the record alone

• Amendments

  Correcting an entry so the original stays legible, with who and when

• Electronic records

  Instrument data, spreadsheets, audit trails and access control

• Data integrity

  ALCOA principles applied to an ordinary testing laboratory

• Retention

  Retention periods, storage and controlled disposal

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. 01Judge whether a record contains enough to reconstruct the result.
2. 02Amend a record correctly, and recognise an amendment that has destroyed the original.
3. 03Identify where your electronic data is unprotected — usually the spreadsheet between instrument and report.
4. 04Apply retention and disposal consistently rather than keeping everything indefinitely.

Almost every laboratory keeps records. Far fewer keep records that let someone else reconstruct a result without the analyst standing next to them, which is the actual requirement.

The weak point is nearly always the same: an uncontrolled spreadsheet sitting between the instrument output and the report, doing arithmetic nobody has checked and holding no audit trail.

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.