audits

[Peter Apps]

Reason is that only "currently trained" personnel are allowed to use an extinguisher on a fire. And that training needs to be hands-on, and every year.

Fire training made a nice exciting change to routine lab work - we used to get to blast big pans of burning Diesel with time expired powder extinguishers. Fun . And the training really does help, as with everything there is a right way and a wrong way; one trainee managed to turn a nicely controlled diesel fire into an inferno by entraining air into the powder stream through waggling the nozzle back and forward too quickly instead of steady sweeps across the fire front.

Fire and first aid training are among the few things that you learn at work that are any use in the outside world as well.

Peter

[lmh]

Yes, it's always fun and useful. When I went on the course, another attendee was a tiny lady with a bad back who was really devastated to find she couldn't actually lift an extinguisher. She almost cried, saying she was wasting everyone's time being there. The fireman put it completely differently: "No, because now you know in advance that you can't lift it, so you're not going to waste precious time in a fire situation finding out. The extra minute you'll save by just setting off the alarm and leaving the building could save people's lives."

Another friend of mine had a minor ethanol fire in a sterile flow-hood, and tried the carbon-dioxide extinguisher. Not having ever seen one in action, she had no idea how powerful they were, and spent the rest of the day picking bits of molten plastic out of her clothes and hair where she'd blown flaming petri dishes all over the place.

But on a more serious note, KM, you absolutely need as many fire extinguishers as you have fire doors. Otherwise how are you going to find any other heavy objects with which to prop them open....??

[KM-USA]

We actually did have a fire in our department laboratory, in the late 1970s.

Soon after a family member had passed away, chemist JL was ashing a sample in a fume hood. Apparently there were flammables also in that fume hood. Tech TD saw the flames, pushed me out of the way, pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall, and put out the fire, all within 5 seconds. I wonder what that situation would have turned out with today's conditions.

Anyway, the building/safety guy came around to check on things and was VERY upset that TD had pulled the extinguisher's bracket out of the drywall, and that would need a repair, instead of happy that the whole lab didn't burn....

[lmh]

Yes, fire extinguishers pay for themselves. No question. I once worked in an organisation that lost a brand-new flow-hood because it was set up in a stupidly hot room and the user was so stressed by the temperature they were working in, that they did something silly and set fire to the whole thing. Again it would have been far more serious without there being several extinguishers handy.

And sensible staff training on basic lab fire safety is well worthwhile. I've also known someone in a microbiology lab set fire to their ethanol, and attempt to carry a vessel of burning ethanol to the sink instead of just putting a lid on it. This is hugely dangerous, and it's very easy to teach people what to do in event of a minor thing like that.

[MaryCarson]

Our QA in a previous company came up with the following:

Where are the operating SOP, Usage log and calibration records for this instrument? (A single speed vortex mixer)

We are dealing with this currently, though in our case QAU wanted to see the log for a multi-tube vortexer--it's big, relatively expensive, and in a lab, so it must have an SOP, right?

I've been using criteria that a piece of equipment must generate a data point, or need routine maintenance to work, in order for an SOP (and accompanying log) to be required. Hence our dishwasher (needs periodic softener recharging) has one, but our evaporators (even TurboVaps) don't. I suppose one could make the case that since evaporators has water baths with adjustable temperatures, maybe they should have SOPs. I'd be interested in hearing what policy is for other labs working under GLPs.

[lmh]

My personal attitude is that if it's reasonably possible to use a piece of equipment incorrectly, and doing so would either mess up experimental results or put people in danger, then it's worth having a SOP.

You can't have a calibration record unless a thing is calibrated.

Usage log only makes sense if the last user's actions could reasonably affect the next user, or if internal economics dictate that you need to assess levels of usage.

Maintenance log makes sense if an instrument is maintained regularly, and maintenance/lack thereof could affect results or safety.

[LC_labrat]

To help the auditors (and save frustration) we have generously added NO CALIBRATION REQUIRED labels to general lab equipment such as stir plates, vortexers, etc.

Watching a video about fire safety is good, but actual real fire training is entirely different (and way more fun)! One day I had set up residue on ignition test in the hood, went to weigh out my substance, came back to find a co-worker decided to also use the hood as well and added some flammable solvents, they chose to move to another hood.

A nicely placed empty beverage container prior to an audit sure would be funny, although knowing I would then be subjected to remedial training on lab safety is enough of a deterrent.

[James_Ball]

Talking about the NELAC audits. Last year we went through a horrendous one from a certain state(not naming names) where they found over 500 problems, most of which we did not agree with since we had passed with only a few a year before under another state's auditor. Well after a few months of waiting to hear back from our corrective actions and having to contact them several times we got the word that they were not going to certify us.

The kicker is that a few months later at a conference someone from another lab let it slip that that state was in the process of dropping any out of state certifications. In essence we went through the expense and trouble of the audit when they knew ahead of time that they were not going to certify anyone from another state anyway

Another auditor sent out a finding that our EPA 624 SOP and CCV limits were incorrect. For those we MUST use what is listed in the method. Turns out our limit for passing a CCV was set to +/- 20%, yet in that table many of those analytes have pass/fail criteria of +/- 50% or greater. Funny how we were setting our limits much more stringent but were cited for a violation.

Another was a finding that we did not generate in house limits for surrogate recovery on our NP Pesticides in soil by taking the last 20 analytical runs and doing the statistics. Come to find out in the last year we have only ran ONE soil sample for that test