STATISTICS IS HOW COMPLEX TECHNICAL PROBLEMS BECOME SIMPLE.
You don't need to know statistics. You need to know that your technical
problem - a disputed legal limit, a standard without precision data, test
results that laboratories cannot agree on - already has a statistical shape,
and a standard-compliant way to be solved.
EPT is the European platform for collaborative interlaboratory studies: tailor-made statistical protocols compliant with ISO 13528, delivering complete,
interpreted dossiers that can be used where it matters - in standardization
committees, in regulatory reviews, in legal disputes.
From your question to a complete statistical dossier
Every EPT project follows the same path - and ends with a document you
can put on a table where decisions are made.
1 · The statistical protocol. We translate your technical question into a
tailor-made statistical protocol, designed in accordance with ISO 13528 and
the supporting standards of industrial statistics. No two protocols are alike,
because no two questions are.
2 · Your project page. A dedicated page is created on the EPT platform.
You own it. You decide how it is organised, and you develop its contents as
the study progresses - from the presentation of the project to the collection
of results.
3 · Data collection - with real samples. Participating laboratories receive
real samples from manufacturing companies, with the genuine matrix effects
and analytical difficulties that laboratories must be able to manage - not
spiked samples. Results are uploaded through the platform in complete
anonymity.
4 · The dossier. Results are processed with registered software packages, in
accordance with ISO 13528 and ISO/IEC 17043 documentation requirements.
You receive a complete dossier: robust statistics, real measurement
uncertainty, and interpretation - with suggestions for the use of the results,
including in regulatory and legal contexts.
Participating laboratories receive their own ISO-compliant reports, usable as
evidence of competence for accreditation purposes. The full dossier remains
an exclusive resource in the hands of the project organiser.
A different kind of interlaboratory study
Proficiency testing schemes under ISO/IEC 17043 are evaluative: a stable,
repetitive protocol whose purpose is to score the performance of individual
laboratories.
They are essential - and they answer one question only: is this
laboratory performing acceptably?
EPT operates in the space that evaluative schemes cannot reach:
collaborative studies, where the statistical protocol is redesigned every time
around the scientific question itself. Is this new standard fit for purpose?
What is the real measurement uncertainty of this method against a legal limit
under revision? Is the anomaly coming from one supplier, or from the
background noise of the entire supply chain?
This is why collaborative studies cannot be run as standardised, accredited
schemes: their strength is precisely that nothing about them is standard -
except the statistics, which strictly follow ISO 13528 and the international
framework of industrial statistics.
Anonymity by design - not by promise
Every interlaboratory provider is required to keep participants' identities
confidential. Confidentiality, however, is a promise: somewhere in the
organisation, the link between identity and results exists.
On the EPT platform that link does not exist. Registration and data upload are
separated by design: once registered, each participant receives a PIN -
displayed once, on screen only, never stored in retrievable form - and is
automatically logged out. From that moment, every interaction with the study
happens through the PIN alone. The platform itself cannot reconstruct who is
behind a result. The same protection logic used in banking card circuits,
applied to laboratory data.
And because participation in EPT collaborative studies is free of charge, there
is no invoice, no commercial record, no weak link.
This is what allows public laboratories, control authorities and institutions to
take part in studies that validate standards and legal limits - with complete
scientific freedom.
Proven where it matters
Validating an international standard. An ISO technical committee needed precision data for a new standard. Through a collaborative study run on the EPT platform, all committee members were involved and the standard was validated with the expected performance - measurement uncertainty included.
Mastering a complex system. LCA practitioners analysing the same product had long been known to produce different results - but without a statistical protocol, no one could say what those differences meant. A collaborative study on the EPT platform brought LCA inside the ISO/IEC 17043 / ISO 13528 interlaboratory framework for the first time, with professionals from 17 countries: the real uncertainty of LCA results was quantified and separated by source, and LCA practitioners were qualified, for the first time, on objective statistical evidence.
Serving public authorities. Studies involving official methods and regulatory limits can be run under full confidentiality agreements, with results communicated exclusively to the commissioning authority.
Divisions
The EPT methodology serves every sector where measurement matters.
Two dedicated divisions:
C-PT - Collaborative Proficiency Testing - collaborative studies for standard validation, real measurement uncertainty, legal limits under revision, supply-chain diagnostics.
Automotive - IATF 16949
The statistical core tools of the automotive supply chain (MSA, SPC, capability) extended to the inter-laboratory and inter-supplier level: when a customer-supplier dispute is born in the measurement system, not in the product. Recurring statistical support available by subscription.
Your problem already has a statistical shape.
Open a project on the EPT platform, or book a consultation with one of our specialists to find out what a collaborative study can do for your question.
