Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment

Resource Library > chemistry > Quality Systems

AFCEE/TDV Chemistry understands that data are costly to obtain and sustain. Data that are of sufficient quality and quantity is essential for better decision making.

Our breadth and depth of experience in enhancing project planning through decision support and analysis helps provide Air Force leadership with comprehensive data and expertise to protect, preserve, restore, develop, and sustain our nation's environmental and installation resources.

Quality Systems - Safeguarding Information and the Environment
A sound decision is based on a well established quality system, and implementing and adhering to a quality system is fundamental to AFCEE's mission. AFCEE/TDV Chemistry upholds this mission by ensuring transparency of environmental data that adhere to a basic standard of quality throughout the lifecycle of environmental projects.

NOTE: The U.S. EPA recently issued guidelines for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of environmental information. As the Air Force's environmental service center, AFCEE adheres to and implements quality assurance processes. These processes ensure environmental data adhere to a basic standard of quality throughout its entire lifecycle. As a key component to this process, AFCEE/TDV Chemistry validates environmental data through standardized procedures. For example, AFCEE/TDV Chemistry developed, and continually updates, project planning and technical deliverable templates for contractor use to ensure consistency in data collection, analysis, validation, and reporting processes.

Roles and Responsibilities in the Quality System
Various environmental professionals are continually involved with assessing, correcting, changing, and improving data and information throughout a program's lifecycle. Below lists general roles and responsibilities within a quality system.

Role	Responsibility
All Environmental Professionals	Accountable for the quality of their individual contribution.
AFCEE Chemists	Serve as AF representative for DoD Quality Assurance programs, ensuring appropriate program oversight and implementation at the installation level. Provides subject matter expertise on quality systems.
Program Managers	Manage the quality of technical work through direct involvement in planning, team leadership, and decision making.
Restoration Contractors	Deliver quality data and services that support the Air Force's environmental mission and in accordance with the contract. Provide principal oversight of laboratories.
Laboratories	Provide analytical data that meet project requirements and comply with DoD policies.
Technical Support Contractors	Provide secondary subject matter expertise on quality systems at the direction of AFCEE/TDV.

Quality Management Plan (QMP)
Contractors performing work for AFCEE must have some type of QMP in place.

The QMP is a formal document describing the performing organization's management policies, objectives, principles, organizational authority, responsibilities, accountability, and implementation protocols for ensuring quality in its products and utility to its users.

NOTE: The QMP is an organization- or program- (not project) specific document. It describes the general practices of an organization or program. Project-specific details of individual projects of the organization or program are documented in a Sampling and Analysis Plan. The QMP may be viewed as the "umbrella" document under which individual projects are conducted.

The recommended format for a QMP and information it should contain can be found in the Uniform Federal Policy for Implementing Environmental Quality Systems (UFP-QS), which can be found on the EPA's Quality Assurance Web page. The AFCEE-TDV Chemistry Team can assist in the creation of a QMP, and can also evaluate and suggest improvements to project quality assurance documentation like the QMP.

DoD Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program (ELAP)
At the end of 2008, the Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Environment, Safety and Occupational Health) issued a memorandum establishing the DoD ELAP. Effective 1 October 2009, laboratories seeking to perform testing in support of DoD environmental restoration programs are required to be accredited in accordance with the DoD ELAP.

There are currently four DoD-recognized third-party ABs that award renewable accreditation to those laboratories that have shown acceptable conformance with the DoD Quality Systems Manual (QSM).

ACLASS
The American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA)
The Laboratory Accreditation Bureau (L-A-B)
Perry Johnson, Inc.

To assist in locating accredited labs, the Environmental Data Quality Workgroup (EDQW) has posted a searchable list of accredited laboratories on their DENIX webpage. This list can be accessed by clicking on the "Search DoD ELAP Accredited Labs" link at Denix website.

For more information and a list of sites pertaining to accredited labs see our DoD ELAP page.

DoD Quality Systems Manual
ELAP accreditation is predicated upon conformance to the current version of the DoD QSM. The DoD QSM is based on the National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Conference (NELAC) Quality Systems standard (Chapter 5), which provides guidelines for implementing the international standard, ISO/IEC 17025, General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories. This manual contains the minimum requirements DoD considers essential to ensure the generation of definitive environmental data of known quality, appropriate for their intended uses.

The QSM can and should be supplemented by project-specific requirements. AFCEE strongly encourages project teams to involve laboratories and project chemists during project-planning activities. This involvement is critical to the development of project-specific measurement performance criteria (MPC) and to the selection of methods capable of satisfying the MPC.

Quality Assessments
Quality assessments are processes used to ensure contractor's data product meets the performance requirements established. The DoD ELAP sets a minimum standard for all data collected in support of the environmental restoration program. The laboratory performance evaluation program provides data quality assurance at the project level. For a closer examination of data quality at the project level, desk or on-site evaluations can further evaluate the usability of generated data.

Laboratory Performance Evaluation (PE)
Technical and management decisions for a project are only as good as the quality of the data they are based on. One way to evaluate project-specific data quality is by sending laboratories double- or single-blind proficiency testing (PT) samples that the laboratories analyze at the same time they process other submitted field samples. The PE program assesses internal processes and analytical capabilities of the environmental analytical chemistry laboratory and should be integrated into the project's overall data quality assurance process.

NOTE: The PE program should not be used as a stand-alone tool for evaluating laboratories, but as an integral element of a data quality program. If a failure in a performance evaluation occurs, it should be followed up with a system evaluation.

For the PE program, AFCEE/TDV Chemistry will:

Coordinate with the prime contractor and PT sample vendor
Select appropriate analytical methods
Establish a suitable range of contaminants
Determine proper sample containers
Evaluate PT sample data and quality control results

NOTE: These services may be funded by individual projects. Therefore, as AFCEE/TDV

Chemistry coordinates the technical support required and budgetary planning, it is essential to identify interested program participants.

Direct Laboratory Evaluations
When questionable results from an ELAP inspection or PE occur, it may be necessary to perform a more in-depth look at a laboratory's quality system. AFCEE/TDV Chemistry can provide technical expertise for laboratory evaluations conducted in conjunction with the prime contractors. In a typical visit.a multi-disciplinary team of experts will dig deeply into evidence of actual practices. The team will report findings (in respect to the approved Quality System and/or contractual obligations) and if necessary recommend corrective actions. AFCEE/TDV Chemistry can provide assistance in conducting successful laboratory quality evaluations.

Quality-Related Documents
Several quality-related documents can be used in developing, documenting, and adhering to quality in all current AFCEE/TDV Chemistry projects: