APMP-APLAC joint proficiency testing programs for elemental analysis in food with metrological reference values: Assessment of participants' performance considering measurement uncertainties

Abstract

The Asia Pacific Metrology Program (APMP) and the Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC) joint Proficiency Testing (PT) programs for toxic elements such as cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) or nutritional elements such as iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) in food were organized by the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) with the aim of enhancing the quality of measurement and metrological traceability in various economies of the Asia Pacific region by evaluating the performance with rigorous evaluation. Three APMP-APLAC joint PT programs for elemental analyses were carried out by KRISS sequentially, where candidate certified reference materials (CRMs) were used as the PT materials and metrologically traceable certified reference values (RVs) were used as the PT assigned values for the evaluation of participants’ results, which allows reliable evaluation of participant performance. This article describes the operation of the PTs and overall performance of the participating laboratories. The effectiveness of these joint PT programs and trends in PT performance assessment are also discussed. These PT programs confirm significant importance of using the metrologically traceable RVs instead of the consensus vlaues from participants as the PT assigned value for reliable assessment. The results of PTs also demonstrated that PT programs are useful for improving measurement capability of the laboratories, whereas more capability-building in uncertainty evaluation is required for further improvement.

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