Quality Assurance

SAW Environmental currently provides comprehensive Quality Assurance (QA) services

by having dedicated QA staff. We help establish, modify, and manage Quality

Management Systems (QMS) specific to the procedures, standards, and requirements of

our client’s regulatory needs.

Our staff has the experience necessary to identify QMS deficiencies and

operational/technical problems and to provide the solutions that allow our clients greater

efficiencies, cost savings, and increase compliance.

Data Validation

Data validation is a critical step in the process of assuring the data used to make decisions

is of known quality. Our staff has extensive experience conducting data reviews of

different types of matrices, including drinking water, ground water, soil, air emissions,

and wastes. This includes both microbiological and chemical validation processes for

organics, inorganics, and bacteria. SAW Environmental will tailor this service to meet

specific project needs of our clients. We can perform data reviews concurrently with a

program’s ongoing data validation and verification operations or in conjunction with a

technical systems audit.

Audits

SAW Environmental has extensive experience planning and conducting third-party

environmental laboratory assessments and audits to satisfy various state and federal

certifications and to verify compliance with governmental regulations.

SAW staff has received organic, inorganic, microbiological, radiochemical, and whole

effluent toxicity technical training including the EPA Drinking Water Certification

Officer training. SAW Environmental provides continuing education to assure its staff is

up to date on evolving methods, technologies, and regulations.

We provide auditing services for the following programs:

• United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• International Standards Organization (ISO)
• National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Conference (NELAC)
• The NELAC Institute (TNI)
• American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)
• Other state and federal programs

SAW Environmental also provides internal auditing services in support of ISO/TNI

requirements. Third party internal audits often result in the identification of deficiencies

that are generally missed by laboratory staff. Blind spots occur when staff are involved

with both data validation and data auditing.

Training

SAW Environmental staff design and conduct training modules on a variety of quality system and

technical topics. Our experts have prepared and presented training on the following subjects: data

integrity and ethics training, sampling protocols, method specific and technology specific

technical training, program specific training (e.g. 2009 TNI Standard), and data validation training

for those who ensure the quality of data sets.