The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has launched this year’s Inter-Laboratory Comparison program. The program is used to demonstrate competency and validate laboratories’ measurement processes for a particular measurement discipline. 

The development is aimed at supporting the ever-growing laboratory infrastructure in the country. This is in line with the UNBS mandate of enhancing competitiveness through standardisation and conformity assessment.

The Inter-Laboratory Comparison refers to the evaluation of a participant laboratory’s performance against pre-established criteria by comparing the participant laboratory’s results to the results of other participant laboratories in the same ILC round.

According to ISO/IEC 17043:2010 Conformity assessment — General requirements for proficiency testing, an Inter-Laboratory Comparison is the organization, performance and evaluation of measurements or tests on the same or similar items by two or more laboratories in accordance with predetermined conditions.

This year, ten matrices will be tested. These include Maize flour, UHT Milk, Potable Water, Non-carbonated soft drinks, Cosmetics, Roasted Coffee, Paint, Animal feeds, Cement and Steel bars.

The UNBS said this round of ILC exercise is highly recommended for all public and private commercial testing laboratories including laboratories within manufacturing facilities that fall under the scope of the ILC irrespective of size. This is because the ILC program provides a quality assurance tool to laboratories for comparing performance and taking necessary remedial action to facilitate improvement, to produce accurate and reliable test results.

All interested laboratories/institutions are encouraged to register for participation by filling out the ILC registration form 2023 available on the UNBS website via the link https://unbs.go.ug/content.php?src=unbs-inter-laboratory-comparison and submit the filled UNBS ILC registration form to the ILC Coordination desk using email: ilc@unbs.go.ug by 30^th September.