KPMD today launched EQAlite, their new application service for external quality assessment (EQA), proficiency testing (PT), and inter-laboratory comparison schemes. For more details on EQAlite www.kpmd.co.uk/scripts/eqalite.htm.

At its simplest, EQAlite offers PT and EQA organisers a web-based system that allows them to maintain the details of their participating laboratories, the schemes they run and the individual distributions or rounds that they issue. It also provides participating laboratories with a website where they can enter their results and view the final round report. The round reports can be tailored to use whichever statistical analysis method required, z-scores, robust z-scores etc, in fact the whole system can be tailored to meet the precise requirements. It can, for example, allow organisers to maintain units, methods and machines used by participants for further analysis, participants would select the method used when they enter their results. Standard website features can be added such as a page with the organiser's contact details, a page about the organisation, news items, registration details, scheme handbooks etc.

Dave Staniforth explained "We realised that the smaller EQA and PT schemes found our main software was overcomplicated and not an economical solutions for their requirements. These smaller schemes only require the key features that EQAlite offers, web data entry, automatic report generation also over the web, and multilanguage, and the price reflects this. Our main EQA product has many more features such as registration and invoicing, correspondence management, sample management, quality procedure management and control, and so on. All of this adds to the cost.".

Read more about the KPMD EQA Programme Manager software here www.kpmd.co.uk/scripts/ProgramMan.htm