The IOW analytics group

Within the scope of the analysis and monitoring of marine habitats, the analytics group of the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) integrates a wide range of analytical services for all the institute’s sections. Its quality management aims at an optimum performance in solving set tasks and thereby at contributing to a more profound understanding, evaluation and protection of marine ecosystems as well as at supporting IOW’s basic research.

To guarantee the quality of the results in the interest of national and international partners and to document the reliability of the measured data, the IOW analytics group works according to the norm DIN EN ISO/IEC 17025:2005.

Initial accreditation and quality control
The German Accreditation Body (Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle) DAkks regularly checks the quality and reliability of analytical services. After confirming the IOW analytics group’s core competence by awarding an initial accreditation in October 2014, the DAkks again focused on the team’s quality management during its follow-up audit in October 2015.

During the extensive two-day inspection, the DAkks auditor thoroughly scrutinised the state and maintenance of technical equipment, the reliability of reference measurements and ring tests, the quality of laboratory reports and the strategies and protocols for error control (prevention, detection and correction), amongst other things. He also checked the complete sample processing and data generation chain, from the sample’s arrival at IOW, to its preparation, processing and analysis, to the treatment of the data and finally their transfer to the customer. Throughout the audit, the IOW analytics team convincingly demonstrated its ability to correctly and efficiently follow the well-defined protocols (plan-do-check-act), while showing high commitment to achieve an optimum performance. Furthermore, the analytical system and the quality management system proved to be very efficient and very well structured, thus providing ideal conditions for reliable, high quality results on a long-term basis.

The DAkks’ conclusion after the audit: All members of the IOW analytics group are competent and professional in their performance while reliably fulfilling legal and normative requirements as well as maintaining a high, internationally comparable standard. Furthermore, all facilities and the analytical system are outstanding, especially in the face of the short period since the group’s initial accreditation.