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To describe a new approach to the performance evaluation and benchmarking of analytical laboratory services and their associated supply chains.

Life cycle and industrial process approaches are adapted for consideration of the environmental performance of multidisciplinary laboratories as found in large multifunctional facilities. Models are developed to facilitate performance evaluation.

The laboratory product model (LPM) considers laboratory service delivery from a whole‐of‐life perspective. It defines an information product as a standard unit of production that facilitates performance evaluation of laboratories using both normalised and absolute values. Performance evaluation boundaries are extended beyond the internal laboratory processes to incorporate the supply chain, i.e. from sample collection to the end use of the information product.

Application of the research is limited by the availability of relevant corporate data. Future work could address routine collection of data appropriate to environmental performance evaluation so as to reduce the need for extensive life cycle inventories.

Focus is on a practical approach to improving the environmental performance of laboratory services through objective evaluation of laboratory and facility performance. The research provides a means of comparing laboratories founded in different disciplines, e.g. chemistry and microbiology.

Addresses laboratory supply chain issues by providing new tools for performance evaluation and benchmarking of laboratories. It uses new approaches to laboratory performance evaluation that help achieve sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology combining experimental and inquiry methods used for software usability evaluation. The software product of LeViS project funded by the European Commission (Socrates/Lingua II) is used as an evaluation paradigm. The aim of the paper is twofold: to present the results of the usability evaluation using this software as an example and to suggest a number of improvements for the next version of the software tool; and to portray the advantages of combining methods from different evaluation approaches and the experiences from their application.

The evaluation for this experiment combined different usability methods, both experimental and inquiry ones. More specifically, the methods employed were the Thinking Aloud Protocol and the User Logging, which were performed in a usability evaluation laboratory, as well as the inquiry methods of Interview and Focus Group.

In this study, usability problems regarding the Learning via Subtitling (LvS) educational software were revealed as well as issues regarding the use of Thinking Aloud Protocol method and involving users with a specific profile. The research findings presented in this paper constitute an innovative and effective methodology for software usability evaluation and are useful for laboratories aiming to conduct similar evaluations.

Although this methodology has been successfully applied for over 20 software products, due to practical purposes related to this paper's extent, only one software is used as an example.

Through the evaluation process, apart from discovering certain usability problems related to the software, there are a number of important conclusions drawn, regarding the methods used and the methodology followed in software usability evaluation.

There is an apparent lack of research investigating how different test conditions influence or bias consumer sensory evaluation of food. The aim of the present pilot study was to determine if testing conditions had any effect on responses of an untrained panel to a novel chicken product. Assessments of flavour, texture and overall liking of corn‐fed chicken were made across three different testing conditions (laboratory‐based under normal lighting; laboratory‐based under controlled lighting; and, home testing). Least favourable evaluations occurred under laboratory‐based conditions irrespective of what lighting was used. Consumers perceived the product more favourably in terms of flavour (p < 0.001), texture (p < 0.001) and overall preference (p < 0.001) when evaluated in the familiar setting of the home. Home testing produced more consistent assessments than under either of the two laboratory‐based test conditions. The results imply that home evaluation should be undertaken routinely in new food product development.

The purpose of this paper is to make a lean assessment of a chemical analyst training laboratory in a higher education institution and identify the main types of waste on a daily basis and understand the lean maturity of the laboratory and establish priority areas of intervention to make the laboratory leanest.

A single descriptive case study methodology was used to carry out the lean laboratory evaluation. The lean manufacturing waste terminology was adapted to a lean analytical laboratory environment, and a lean waste assessment step-by-step procedure was developed to reach the study goal.

Three types of waste (i.e. transport, waiting and defects) were the main contributors of the problem. The Pareto analysis results showed that 37.5% of the different types of waste contributed to almost 51.4% of the problems. The case study allowed on diagnosing wastes, understanding the lean maturity in a teaching laboratory setting and priority areas of intervention

Some data collection methods were used, and tools were developed to answer the research questions. A waste measurement instrument was created to evaluate lean waste in a chemical analytical laboratory, and a lean classification scheme was built to understand the lean maturity of the laboratory. The lessons learnt of the lean assessment in a teaching laboratory and the developed tools will be helpful for future research and for practitioners in a teaching chemical analytical laboratory setting.

The number of lean assessment studies in teaching laboratories is not very significant, and this work contributes to overcome this gap illustrating the lean waste assessment foundation with a step-by-step procedure and tools used in a teaching laboratory to perform a lean assessment and identify opportunities for improvement. A generic roadmap to lean laboratory waste assessment and continuous improvement is proposed with the key elements to take into consideration.

Discusses the potential uses of computers in the sensory evaluation laboratory. Suggests factors to be taken into consideration when designing a computer system for this application.

The complexity in determining the quality of a credence good like wine increases due to the lack of mandatory ingredient labeling. This has generated a significant information asymmetry in the wine market, leading consumers to delegate their purchase decisions to expert rankings and wine guides. This paper explores whether expert assessments reduce the information asymmetry caused by the absence of ingredient labeling in the wine market.

By employing analysis of variance (ANOVA) in a sample of 304 wines included in the Wine Guide of the Spanish Consumers Organization (OCU), this paper assesses the extent to which expert assessments based on sensory evaluations converge with the objective cues provided by laboratory analysis in wine quality evaluations.

Results reveal a mismatch between expert assessments and laboratory analyses. Chemical aspects such as SO₂ levels or volatile acidity, sensorial factors such as intensity and persistence, and extrinsic variables such as the region of origin or wine type play an important role in the quality ranking of wines.

These findings call for the inclusion of objective intrinsic cues in expert sensory assessments to provide consumers reliable information about wines and to resolve the apparent dissonances in wine quality assessments.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the activities needed to meet specified requirements to assist laboratory staff running tests and calibrations and to obtain ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation.

The relevant literature that contributes to establishing activities that help laboratory staff to obtain ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation was studied. Laboratory researchers specializing in electro-medical equipment quality control were questioned about the criteria to be observed when selecting, developing and validating analytical steps.

Results revealed the analytical method criteria to be observed, which demonstrated their essentially quantitative nature.

This study presents a model that improves selecting, developing and validating analytical steps and contributes to producing reliable test and calibration results. These improvements can help laboratory testing and calibration to meet clients’ needs, satisfy specified requirements and provide reliable results.

The purpose of this paper is to formulate the strategy for improving the laboratory practices to enhance customer satisfaction by analyzing the performance of critical factors of IS/ISO/IEC 17025 (2005) laboratory accreditation and the importance attached by the quality/technical managers in the accredited Indian testing/calibration laboratories.

The perceptions of the critical factors of laboratory accreditation and the importance attached by the quality/technical managers in their organizations have been collected and analyzed to develop an importance-performance analysis (IPA) model to enhance the customer satisfaction.

Findings report that the performance of the critical factors and the importance assigned to them are not the same. There exist gaps between the performance and importance which need to be measured and analyzed by the management to strive toward continual improvement to enhance the customer satisfaction through the accredited testing and calibration services.

This study is restricted to 54 responses out of 150 which were sent (i.e. about 36 percent response rate) to capture the perspectives of the quality/technical managers.

This study would enable the accredited laboratories to analyze the gap in performance and the importance assigned to critical factors through the feedback from the quality/technical managers. By analyzing the strengths and weaknesses in the accredited testing/calibration laboratories, managerial decisions and strategic plans can be proposed to gain greater insights into benchmarking improvement of the laboratory quality management system with the existing resources to strive toward customer satisfaction.

This paper proposes IPA as a tool to assess the gap between the importance and performance of critical factors of accredited testing and calibration laboratories in India.

Non‐corrosive rosin fluxes have historically been used for telephone communications assemblies because they provide a measure of reliability even if the flux is not totally removed from the assembly. While cleaning is not always necessary from a reliability standpoint, testing issues, product appearance, operating performance and customer requirements must also be considered when making the decision whether or not to clean. As the electronics industry packages more and more functionality on less and less real estate, soldering yields need to increase in order for the assembly process to remain profitable. This requires not only attention to the product's design for manufacturing but it may also require aggressive fluxes to be used in the assembly process. When aggressive fluxes are employed, the necessity for cleaning is greatly increased. The particular combination of flux and cleaning option depends on product design, process capabilities, end point requirements, and environmental considerations. Pending restrictions on the production and use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and the potential for tighter controls on chlorinated solvents and aqueous detergent effluents, are certain to add to the cost of standard processes. For these reasons alternative cleaning processes have been explored. The evaluation and subsequent use of water soluble flux with ‘water only’ cleaning, terpene cleaning of rosin flux residues, low solids flux ‘no‐clean’ wave soldering and ‘no‐clean’ assembly using reflowed rosin based solder pastes within AT&T are reviewed. A user's assessment of aqueous and semi‐aqueous cleaning is presented which indicates that there are acceptable alternatives to CFCs.

HotMap web search was designed to support exploratory search tasks by adding lightweight visual and interactive features to the commonly used list‐based representation of web search results. Although laboratory user studies are the most common method for empirically validating the utility of information visualization and information retrieval systems such as this, it is difficult to determine if such studies accurately reflect the tasks of real users. This paper aims to address these issues.

A longitudinal user evaluation was conducted in two phases over a ten‐week period to determine how this novel web search interface was being used and accepted in real‐world settings.

Although the interactive features were not used as extensively as expected, there is evidence that the participants did find them useful. Participants were able to refine their queries easily, although most did so manually. Those that used the interactive exploration features were able to effectively discover potentially relevant documents buried deep in the search results list. Subjective reactions regarding the usefulness and ease‐of‐use of the system were positive, and more than half of the participants continued to use the system even after the study ended.

As a result of conducting this longitudinal study, the author has gained a deeper understanding of how a particular visual and interactive web search interface is being used in the real world, as well as issues associated with resistance to change. These findings may provide guidance for the design, development, and study of next generation interfaces for online information retrieval.