Revision No.

:
Standard: WORK INSTRUCTION MANUAL Effective Date :
PNS/ISO/IEC
17025:2017 PROCESS REQUIREMENTS
Work Instruction No.: QUALITY CONTROL FOR HANDLING
Page 1 of 2
WI 7.7-1.11 OF WATER SAMPLE

Quality Control for Handling of Water Samples Collected

by Customer Service Assistants during Transit

Objective: To have a quality control check to ensure that water samples collected by the
Customer Service Assistants are handled properly and not contaminated during transit from
sampling locations to the laboratory.

Scope: All water samples collected by the Customer Service Assistant.

Person Responsible: Customer Service Assistants / Microbiologist

Frequency: At least twice a month* once a week per CSA

Procedure:

1. Micro Lab prepares the sterile distilled water in a regular sampling bottle by autoclaving
it at 121°C for 30 minutes (same sterilization condition of sampling bottles). The number
of bottles containing water to be prepared will be dependent on the number of CSA that
will be checked for the day. One bottle of the same batch of sterilization will be used as
sterility control and will be analyzed together with the QC bottles to ensure that the water
samples given to the CSA were sterile.

2. Microbiologist labels the sterile water (trip blank) and distribute it to the CSA together
with the sampling bottles that they will use for the sampling.

3. Microbiologist will instruct the CSA to should treat the water sample as how they will
treat other collected samples and should be placed inside the Ice Box together with the
other samples.

4. then it will be returned to the CSA submits the trip blank to the Micro Lab in addition to
the collected samples after their sampling activity for the day.

5. Microbiologist analyzes the water samples together with the QC sample trip blank and
sterility control for Heterotrophic Plate Count and Coliform Count. as well as the sterility
control retained in the Micro Lab.

6. HPC should be <1(Est.) < 100 CFU/mL while Coliform Count should be < 1.1 MPN/100mL
in order to prove that no contamination occurred during transit of the water samples

Reviewed by: Approved by:

Microbiology Specialist Quality Manager

 Revision No.:
Standard: WORK INSTRUCTION MANUAL Effective Date :
PNS/ISO/IEC
17025:2017 PROCESS REQUIREMENTS
Work Instruction No.: QUALITY CONTROL FOR HANDLING
Page 2 of 2
WI 7.7-1.11 OF WATER SAMPLE

collected by the CSA. If growth were observed the trip blank fails, consider results of
water samples with count for both HPC and Coliform (as well as E. coli, if requested)
void the possibility of contamination of the water sample(s) collected and conduct
resampling immediately as necessary.

7. Records the result of the QC. Conduct root cause analysis and corrective action
formulation for failed QC. Data can be used for trends analysis for improvement of the
CSA’s handling of samples.

Note: * - CSA’s will be checked randomly. They will not be informed that the bottle containing
water will be used as QC and will be tested together with the samples they are submitting.

-END OF DOCUMENT

Reviewed by: Approved by:

Microbiology Specialist Quality Manager