Quality management

As an analysis laboratory, PARTICLEVER has structured its activity based on the NF EN ISO 9001 “Quality management systems” standard and the NF EN ISO/IEC 17025 “General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories” standard.  These standards are the basis for French COFRAC accreditations (note that currently there is no COFRAC standard for the accreditation of nanoparticle measurements). 

This involves the identification and use of certified standards used in research and development work to calibrate the analysis machines. Considering the absence of any comparable tool to check and compare the measurements, PARTICLEVER guarantees the coherency of results using the combined analysis of different methods and the fine-tuned break-down of sources of uncertainty. As certain certified benchmarks currently do not exist in the field of nanoparticle powders, in partnership with the Grenoble nanosafety platform, PARTICLEVER has developed sample generation procedures for metrology checks.

PARTICLEVER has also benefited from the advice of Grenoble CEA’s internal quality auditors in the setting up of its quality management system. The company has elected to extend its quality management system to processes that are outside the scope of the NF EN ISO 9001 standard in order to guarantee a corporate culture that is highly geared to quality. The company has notably adopted a modern and highly effective document update distribution and traceability procedure.

The sampling devices and cassettes are compliant with the NF EN ISO 13137 standard and include many extra features to secure the protocols.

Innovating features were developed for the sampling devices and collection cassettes in order to secure the protocols and improve traceability. The quality of results and interpretation is thereby guaranteed. Tests for conformity to standards (NF EN ISO 13137) were carried out by the CEA’s nanosafety platform laboratories.  

By implementing all these actions, the company is aiming for a strong guarantee of its results making it possible to correctly compare different measurement points in space or time. The use of the results is consequently very rich.