Standard budget method

Table 4.1 Figures most commonly used in the standard budget method...

Establishing a budget is simpler in a testing laboratory. When the cost of a certain analysis is calculated, however, some items are often overlooked. Of course, it will include man-hours needed. If an instrument is used, the cost of its amortization and maintenance must be figured. If the analysis is non-standard, there is the cost of developing the proper method. The cost of... 

A performance standard states requirements in terms of required results with criteria for verifying compliance but without stating the methods of achieving required results. A performance standard may define the functional requirements for the item, operational requirements, and/or interface and interchangeability characteristics. A performance standard may be viewed in juxtaposition to a prescriptive standard, which may specify design requirements, such as materials to be used, how a requirement is to be achieved, or how an item is to be fabricated or constructed (Office of Management and Budget 1998). 

The protocol must present an uncertainty budget. Its components should be carefully estimated, and may be stated in standard uncertainties, but expanded uncertainties can have great utility, provided the k factor is carefully chosen and indicated [2, 4, 6]13. All supposa-ble uncertainty sources (of types A and B)14, must be considered. Uncertainty components are concerned with contaminations, matrix effects, corrections, lack of stability or of stoichiometry, impurities in reagents, instrument non-linearities and calibrations, inherent uncertainties in standard methods, and uncertainties from subsample selection. Explicitly excluded may have to be sample selection in the field before submission to the laboratory and contamination prior to sample submission to the laboratory. The responsibility for adhering to the protocol s procedures, for which the planned complete uncertainty budget applies, rests with the laboratory and the analyst in charge of the measurement. 

Once the stability and storage conditions of the analytical standard have been established, experiments can be undertaken to develop the analytical method. The preferred strategy is to keep the method as simple as possible, as each step adds to the complexity when training other analysts, and also each added step potentially adds to the uncertainty budget, which is discussed in Chapter 9. A typical method... 

---