Caleb Guedes-Reed

In our latest webinar with our partners at A2LA, we heard from Jonathan Fuhrman, their product certification program manager, about best practices for conducting an internal audit.
A little about Jonathan’s background: he supports the day-to-day operations of accreditation by assisting A2LA clients in obtaining and maintaining accreditation to ISO/IEC 17065, ISO/IEC 17025, and ISO/IEC 17020. As a member of the Electrical and Product Certifications team, he works with Electrical and Mechanical...

Terrill Harris is the Director of Quality and Regulatory Affairs at Prince, a global chemical manufacturer with sites all around the world. When Terrill first joined the team at Prince a few years ago, he viewed it as a blank canvas and an opportunity to start his long-term quality efforts in one location before expanding globally.
Using Qualtrax, Terrill has created a management of change workflow that has saved his team millions of dollars. I caught up with him a few weeks ago to see just h...

If your organization is ready to start shopping for an eQMS, you’ve probably realized just how many options are out there. You have to remember, though, that no two eQMSs are alike and you must discover what differentiates them before choosing one and signing a contract.
In this blog, I sat down with Karen Arrivillaga, Qualtrax Account Executive, to get her opinion on what’s most important for organizations to consider. She came up with 5 essential things to consider. This blog is also availa...

In this recap blog, I will provide you with an overview of our webinar “Understanding the FDA ASCA Program”, a new pilot program. Though this blog will highlight the major points made, you can always watch the presentation and Q&A session in detail here.
Before we go into the content of the webinar, I’d like to present our speaker:
Jason Stine is the Senior Director of Accreditation at ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB). Jason is in charge of accreditation activities relating to testing...

How one start-up cannabis lab achieved ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation in 5 months with the help of Qualtrax.
Becky Hobden is the founder of the ECC Test Lab located in Ashland, Virginia. Now a team of four, ECC Test Lab is a full suite cannabis testing lab that uses analytical and microbial methods to test for potency and purity in cannabis samples.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: How did ECC get started?
A: Before launching ECC back in 2018, I had worked for...

In this webinar, we heard from Qualtrax Solutions Engineer, Tim Akin, about the new TNI regulations, what they mean for your environmental lab, and the innovative tools Qualtrax has designed to make your life easier. This blog will serve as a recap of the presentation. However, you can watch the full recording here! Tim’s recorded presentation is packed with even more information and includes a rich Q&A session at the end with your peers in the industry.
A little bit about Tim before we get s...

In today’s blog, I’d like to address a question we discuss a lot with prospective customers:
Why implement an eQMS when I can use my LIMS system to manage my organization’s quality goals?
First off, there’s an important point I need to make. Yes, some LIMS providers claim that their solutions can manage quality. Unfortunately, these quality add-on components advertised by LIMS providers just don’t get the job done. This can lead to wasted time and putting your accreditation at risk. Time and ...

In the final episode in our ISO/IEC 17025 Nonconformance Webinar Series, we learned from Pam Wright. Pam Wright is the Instructional Design Manager with A2LA WorkPlace Training where her main responsibilities are the design, development and implementation of instruction as well as management of the training department and instructor corps. She formerly worked as the Quality Manager for the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) and continues to support them as a Lead Assesso...

ISO/IEC 17025 is a tough standard for both beginning quality professionals and experts alike. That’s why, over the past year, we partnered with A2LA and A2LA WorkPlace Training to create a series of webinars around one of the most noteworthy aspects of 17025 accreditation – nonconformances. Through these webinars, we had the chance to learn more about the standard from seasoned experts in the field of quality and compliance and to gain key insights in achieving and maintaining accreditation.
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As the year winds down, we all have a great opportunity to reflect on our accomplishments over the past year and plan for the year to come.
One accomplishment we are proud of is to have been able to offer dozens of educational opportunities for those in the quality management and compliance fields. In 2020, we hosted dozens of webinars with accrediting bodies and professionals in the field.
We’ve put together a list of our top eight, most popular resources from the past year that we’re sure w...

Anyone who’s ever prepared for an ISO 17025 audit knows that they can be both difficult and time consuming. Audits can be even more difficult today when some organizations are pushed to complete their audits remotely.
When Michelle Robertson first started as the Quality Assurance Officer at the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (GBRA), she had her work cut out for her. GBRA had over 700 hard copy documents and over 260 bench sheets – a lot for anyone to handle! The way these documents were org...

On September 30th, we sat down with Roger Brauninger, the Technical Training Consultant at A2LA WorkPlace Training to discuss section 7.7 of the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard. In his current role, he provides technical training and consulting, primarily for organizations involved in the life sciences. Mr. Brauninger has conducted numerous management system assessments to ISO/IEC 17025 and ISO/IEC 17020, and has evaluated other assessors in this role. He also maintains recognition as an APAC and...

On September 1st, we had the privilege to sit down with Qualtrax Solutions Engineer, Tim Akin, to discuss one of the most common challenges for labs today – how to take a lab from paper-based to paperless.
Though this blog will provide a recap of Tim’s webinar, we encourage you to watch the full video here.
Before joining Qualtrax as trainer, Tim worked as a forensic chemist for two different labs that used Qualtrax in order to achieve ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation. Tim loves a challenge and he...

We are all tired of hearing about COVID-19 and the way it’s affected so many aspects of our lives.
The good news is that doctors are slowly starting to become more efficient at treating the virus and progress is being made toward a vaccine.
The bad news is that cases are continuing to climb in the United States and COVID isn’t showing any sign of going away soon, especially with a predicted surge in cases during the Fall.
Knowing that the virus will continue to affect our lives for the forese...

On April 1, 2019, New York State passed large-scale criminal justice reform legislation, including discovery reform.
The discovery law governs the exchange of relevant information before a trial begins, enabling both the prosecution and the defense to build their cases based on all available evidence.
What’s changed?
It’s now required that prosecutors disclose their evidence to the defense earlier in the case. In addition, prosecutors must automatically hand over relevant information. Prior t...