A questionnaire was completed by 89 participating laboratories in the
EU-QUASIMEME project to determine the current practices in Quality Man
agement in marine chemistry laboratories. The results are discussed in
relation to the developing QUASIMEME programme. Sixty-four percent of
laboratories recognized that current quality management (QM) measures
are inadequate and that there is a need for development of quality ma
nuals and standard operating procedures to cover all procedures. A str
uctured improvement in quality management and control in all areas of
information gathering is necessary, from the storage, preparation and
analyses of samples to the data recording and archiving. Comparison of
reported precision of data (as indicated from the questionnaire) and
the actual precision shown from the 1993 laboratory performance studie
s indicates significant differences implying that laboratories do not
have a true measure of their real capabilities.