What is the quality of your routine analyses? Are your procedures fit for purpose? Participating in proficiency tests is a convenient way to find out! RISE annually organizes tests for a number of chemical analyses used in pulp, paper and packaging applications. Also, this year, we are broadening the service by adding a third round for lignin.

Proficiency tests are interlaboratory comparisons that give you regular and objective determination of the accuracy of your analyses and assesses the quality of your routine work.

For chemical analysis of samples from the biorefinery, reference material or standard substances are often lacking. By testing in several laboratories a robust assigned average value is obatined that can be used for the evaluation.

Proficiency tests are interlaboratory comparisons that give you regular and objective determination of the accu­racy of your analyses. It also assesses the quality of your routine work, stimulates technical improvement, and offers comparative overviews of the methods you are using. For accredited laboratories, partitioning in proficiency tests is an essential part of the quali­ty management system.

 Since several years, RISE annually organizes comparative tes­ting for a number of chemical analyses used in pulp and paper production and control. Up to 50 labora­to­ries take part in the testing of different properties. In order to arrange a statistically relevant com­parison at least five laboratories are required. The re­sults are compiled in a report, having the identity of the participating laboratories coded. At least three rounds are offered annually. In Round 1, the tests include analyses for pulp, in Round 2 liquid samples like white liquor, black liquor and effluents are distributed and Round 3 will focus on analysis of kraft lignin.

RISE offers proficiency testing for pulp, process liquors and lignin. More than 40 parameters are optional. The samples are distributed by RISE and analyzed by each participant using their regular procedures.

In order to assess the quality of your routine work, you should use the procedures that are normally used in your laboratory. We do however always recommend procedures based on standard methods, and in order to assess differences in reported values, we encourage you to specify any deviations between your procedure and the standard method.

The results are compiled in a report, where the identities of the participants are confidential. Each participant is assigned a unique participation code in order to identify their results in the report.

The samples will be distributed in early fall and results are reported in December.

See section "more information"

For each property, an assigned value (robust average) will be calculated using robust statistics (Algorithm A in ISO 13528). By using this method, outliers do not need to be removed since all values are scaled based on their deviation from the median value. By using the same algorithm, the uncertainty of the assigned value (robust standard deviation) will be determined.

Subsequently, each participant will be assigned a performance score (z-score) for each tested property based on the deviation from the assigned value and the uncertainty of the assigned value.