Fitness for Purpose and Managing Uncertainty

This message was pursued by M. Kaiser and D.G. Gibian in the 1996 ASMS workshop (Baldwin 1997) 

The concept of fitness for purpose is a concept that is certainly not limited to analytical chemistry and is considered here in more detail. The first formal definition of the concept in the analytical chemistry literature appears to be that of Thompson and Ramsey (Thompson 1995) in a study of sampling protocols Fitness for Purpose is the property of data produced by a measurement process that enables the user of the data to make technically correct decisions for a stated purpose.  

The refinement of the original definition (Thompson 1995) proposed by Kaiser and Gibian (Baldwin 1997) explicitly takes into account the inevitable uncertainties in any quantitative measurements Fitness for purpose refers to the magnimde of the uncertainty associated with a measurement in relation to the needs of the apph-cation area. This definition takes what would otherwise be a nebulous or subjective idea and makes it quantifiable. 

Since then, the concept of fitness for purpose has become common currency in analytical chemistry this is well exemplified by a very extensive discussion (Eurachem 1998) of the issue that also emphasizes the close relationship of this concept with that of validation. This relationship can be appreciated by comparing the 

Trace Quantitative Analysis by Mass Spectrometry Robert K. Boyd, Cecilia Basic, Robert A. Bethem 2008 John Wiley Sons, Ltd. ISBN 978-0-470-05771-1 

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