Standardization News

ASTM International’s petroleum products, liquid fuels, and lubricants committee (D02) has completed an extensive revision of an important standard used for establishing and maintaining a quality management system in a laboratory. 

According to ASTM member Susan Pride, the revised standard (D6792) provides guidance for all aspects of laboratory testing, from receiving a sample to reporting results to a customer. 

“There is widespread dependence on D6792 for specific context from the perspective of applying a quality management system to a petroleum laboratory,” says Pride, IRCA QMS principal lead auditor. “Other global standards are available for quality management systems; however, they are deliberately vague to ensure they can apply to various laboratory testing applications. This standard focuses on laboratories that test only petroleum products, liquid fuels, and lubricant samples.” 

According to Pride, some of the key objectives of the revision to the standard include:

• Update of quality philosophies;
• Improved guidance for risk management;
• Improved alignment with other global standards;
• Streamlined document flow to make language clearer for users;
• Modernized information on electronic quality management technologies; and
• Alignment with ISO/IEC 17025 standard.

In addition to these revisions, Pride notes that the revised D6792 now encompasses the modern philosophy of risk management and alignment with the quality expectations of similar standards. At the same time, the task group revising the standard determined the need to develop a new standard for risk management as it applies to petroleum product testing labs.  

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