Welcome And Series Finale

Kim Swanson 0:02

Welcome to AASHTO Resource QA. We're taking time to discuss construction materials, testing, and inspection with people in the know. From exploring testing problems and solutions to laboratory best practices and quality management. We're covering topics important to you.

Brian Johnson 0:19

This is Brian Johnson from AASHTO Resource.

Kim Swanson 0:22

And this is Kim Swanson. And what are we here? Finally, part three, Brian.

Brian Johnson 0:27

Yep, it's part three of our series on changes to AASHTO R18. Uh by now you've already heard the first two parts, uh, and this is the exciting conclusion.

Corrective Actions And Real Timelines

Kim Swanson 0:38

Now, section 5.10, corrective action. What was changed?

Brian Johnson 0:44

They have to have a procedure for uh corrective actions. Is that new?

Kim Swanson 0:49

That wasn't before. Uh it was it implied before, and now it's stated.

Brian Johnson 0:56

I can't remember how much less clear it was before. It might have it might have always always said that. Um, but it does say it it does shift from from root cause to causes. So one thing we've learned over the years is if you go down the path of trying to find the root cause and you're wrong, uh, you may lose out on some potential improvements of quality. Uh so rather than just focusing one on one root cause, we talk about uh causes or causal factors. Uh so we use the term causes now. And then one thing that's really new is that the laboratory has to establish their own timeline for resolution of corrective actions because you could have corrective actions for internal audits, management reviews, uh broken equipment, customer complaints, all kinds of stuff that is not external audit related.

unknown 1:45

Yeah.

Brian Johnson 1:46

But they would always just lean on the inner, you know, whatever our deadline is, or whatever their accrediting body's deadline is. And that really um doesn't cover everything that they would need corrective actions on. So they have to define their own intervals. That's new.

Kim Swanson 2:01

Nice. And that's gives them more control over the process, I'm assuming.

Brian Johnson 2:05

Right. Yeah. Now, what it doesn't allow them to do is define an interval that uh supersedes our requirements. So they can't say, well, our interval is a year. Uh we're we don't care about your your 60-day interval for corrective actions because ours is ours is uh you know 365 days.

Kim Swanson 2:26

Can they have different timelines for different types of corrective actions, or is it one universal, or does it matter as long as it's clearly established and defined?

Brian Johnson 2:34

Yeah, they can do what they want with that as long as it's clearly defined.

Kim Swanson 2:38

Nice.

Inventory And Calibration Rule Updates

Kim Swanson 2:39

Now, moving out of section five and into section six, um, I see that there's been some changes to 6.1 inventory lists. What change there that you want that people should know about?

Brian Johnson 2:51

This isn't earth-shattering uh in the least, but we used to always kind of have this defined as a list, like it's a paper list. And what most people do with their inventory is it's some kind of database or system. And it just gets away from that terminology of just using like a paper list uh and and kind of brings things up to date. But it pretty much everybody's already in in requirement within the requirement for that. And I don't think anybody will need to change anything to accommodate that that change.

Kim Swanson 3:22

Also in section six, measurement standard calibration. What was uh changing in that's uh that section?

Brian Johnson 3:30

So the this one in in 2018 there were some pretty good improvements there, um, but organization of that section wasn't great. Uh so that that's been reorganized a little bit. And two uh two main points that I wanted to mention are um something about if a measurement standard is used in testing, which sometimes happens, uh then the that's okay. But what you have to do is before you use it as a measurement standard again, you have to get it recalibrated.

Kim Swanson 4:01

Yes. And then um I think you also talked about the resolution in the terms. Is that also applicable in this section?

Brian Johnson 4:10

Yeah, resolution and um and test points are the other things that are addressed in the in the standard. So uh we talk about you know, you have to have relevant test points on your equipment records, and you have to record your um rather your readings or results to the readability uh resolution of the equipment you're using. That goes back to that discussion we were having earlier about those incremental changes to your measurements. Exactly. Exactly.

Kim Swanson 4:42

Also in section six, we have evaluation of calibration vendors. There's something changed there as well.

Brian Johnson 4:50

That's right. And and this is again one of those things that I think most people probably already do. So before you hire a calibration company to perform uh activities at your laboratory, you want to vet them and make sure that they can actually provide the services you need. Well, sometimes, and this happens especially with new laboratories, they don't know to do that. They're just like, anybody's anybody can do this. I will just look up, you know, in in my directory or whatever. Um, but there are specific requirements for for these these companies. So what could happen for a new lab is they if they're not aware of that, they might hire somebody who's not accredited, or they might may hire somebody who's accredited to do, and we've seen this balance calibrations, but not thermometer requirements or not thermometer calibrations, or maybe they don't calibrate thermometers using the thermodynamic method, which is required, um, they may they may do something else. So there are all sorts of um requirements that they need to look at. So this is to draw attention to those requirements and make sure that people are vetting those calibration agencies. So this is this is another one of those requirements that was kind of confusing from a DOT perspective, though, because they uh if you're a large organization, large governmental organization, especially, you may have um a different department handling vendor evaluations or selection of vendors. Um, but hopefully what this can do is give those laboratory staff members uh an opportunity to present this requirement to those parties and say, hey, we're responsible for this. That means you're responsible for this. So you need to look at this and make sure that we're having a communication uh to make sure that we're getting what we need and that the state doesn't waste a lot of money on uh non-conforming or uh or non-conforming calibrations.

Annex Tables Get More Specific

Kim Swanson 6:52

Well, thanks for that explanation. Um I think we can move on to the annex changes in the annex, right? That's the kind of next major updates with the equipment tables.

Brian Johnson 7:03

Yeah, and I know this has been really long, but we're at the last I swear we're at the last one. Yeah, because the appendix is gone, this is the last part, the annex. So the annex is where all the important equipment tables are. Uh, one thing that people wondered in the past was like, what is the requirement for this? It'll say the equipment and it'll say the interval, and it'll say what standard the equipment is used in, but it won't say like what you need to do, like standardize the temperature readings or standardize the mass readings, or check this part. Um uh now there's a requirement column in the tables that gives that information, which should be helpful. Uh this won't be again, this is not news to already accredited labs. They're already doing these things, but if you're a new lab, this is gonna be really helpful. Um other thing we did is we removed almost all the volume measurement determination. So back in 2018, we added all these different measures that had to be uh determined, the volumes had to be determined for people to run the tests. And there was a requirement for that to be done every six or 12 months, depending on the test method. Um, but in some of those, you really need to do it every time you run the test. And documenting it according to RIT really didn't make a lot of sense to some people. So we balled them that balloon them for removal uh in all cases, except I think AASHTO T209, because that standard required an annual um verification of that anyway. So that one did make sense to keep in the tables. Um another one that which was new and I think people are gonna be surprised by uh is that any fixed measurement items only require a one-time standardization. So if there's like a ruler, like a metal ruler affixed to something, you don't have to, there's really no point in checking that every year. It's it's bolted to the thing, it's uh it's not gonna change. The only thing that would change is it could get damaged, uh, numbers could wear off, something like that, in which case you'd have to replace it and re, you know, recheck it. But uh that that's about it. But in those cases where that is the is happening, there is a notation in the table that says like, you know, see footnote, and then the footnote will say that. So you can't just like guess which ones fall into that category or or or try to impart that requirement to other things that actually do need to be uh checked or standardized regularly.

Kim Swanson 9:25

Yeah, and there were a couple new equipment tables added, right, to the section for pavement pavement preservation and pavement preservation.

Brian Johnson 9:35

That's right. So there's a whole scope on pavement preservation, and now it has a separate table. Um that should help people who work in that industry be able to zero in on the requirements instead of guessing where they are. Um we also have and this was believe it or not, people have been asking for this one for years. They want to know. We used to say, um, okay, you have to standardize your measurement standards or calibrate your measurement standards. Um, but we never said when to do each one. So now the table will actually list what the intervals are for recalibration or calibration of these measurement standards. So that would be like a reference thermometer, um standard masses that you would use if you're standardizing your own balances, uh, gauge blocks if you're standardizing calipers or other length measuring devices, things like that are all in this measurement standards table.

Kim Swanson 10:32

And then um what changed, or was this new about the maintenance table?

Brian Johnson 10:38

Yeah, this is the last thing we're gonna talk about, the maintenance table. So that one, similar to the calibration one, there's more information provided about what activities you're actually doing. You know, what are you uh what are you tightening up or or lubricating or uh cleaning out or whatever, whatever the maintenance activity is, uh it's now clearly documented on the table. That'll again prevent some confusion.

Renumbering And Implementation Expectations

Kim Swanson 11:08

These sound like really straightforward changes for someone who's not technical. Um, nothing seemed too earth-shattering um from your def uh description of it. Um, has anything else changed? Maybe like the order numbers? Because I know some are like of the standard section numbers or anything like that, or has that stayed the same?

Brian Johnson 11:29

I'm I'm glad you asked that one because that some laboratories do try to to align their quality management system sections with R18 section numbering. And because we did incorporate some new sections, that bumped a bunch of other numbering down. So if you are one of those laboratories that tries to align your numbering with R18s, you're gonna have to go in and fix that. Also, if you're a LIMS provider and you have a bunch of customers and you're trying to do that, then you've got to update that yourself uh and and get on the ball uh by January 1st and get those updates out to your customers. So that'll be a fun time for you uh for dealing with that. No, it'll be, I mean, it's really not much. Like the they they are renumbered, but I mean, especially if you're you have a lot of customers, you have one system you have to update, that shouldn't be too complicated.

Kim Swanson 12:26

That's the the mark of death. That should be easy. It's always easy for the person not having to do it.

Brian Johnson 12:34

Right, that's right. I'm not doing it.

Kim Swanson 12:36

So yeah, so it's easy for you, Brian, because we don't have to do any of that work.

Brian Johnson 12:40

Yeah, yeah, but really um when we talked about uh some allowance for time of implementation with our oversight committee, that was one of the discussions we had. It's like, eh, I mean, none of this is that big of a deal. Uh some of it's going to be a significant change for some people, but I think most of it is pretty straightforward or already what they're doing. So I think once they start actually going through it, they're gonna be less concerned as they were will be when they look at the red lines. So that I I don't want that's another reason we're doing this, by the way. Like I don't want people freaking out when they when they look at the all the the red lines. Uh, because when you look at the substantial nature of the change or lack of substantive changes, um it won't be that overwhelming.

Kim Swanson 13:34

And what other resources do we have for uh the industry for laboratory technicians and lab managers about these changes?

Resources Plus How To Send Feedback

Brian Johnson 13:44

So we do have a uh a summary of changes document. It's not going to be comprehensive, like it's not gonna have every line item change in it because uh you'll need to go to the standard for that. But it's gonna it's gonna touch on all the top line items like what we talked about today. Uh so you'll have a document that you can refer to.

Kim Swanson 14:05

Well, I think this was a good use of our time. And if you've watched or listened to this entire thing, yay for you. Um thank you. Uh thank you for that. Is there anything else that you want um laboratory personnel to know about the R18-26 updates?

Brian Johnson 14:28

Just if you have questions, please let us know. And if you see something glaring to you where you say, Oh, they they really missed the boat on this, and or I wish it had this word instead of this word, let us know that too. Because, like I said before, this is not the last revision of R18. Uh, and we do, as soon as it's out, we need to start getting ready for the next revision. So get those get those suggestions coming so we can start working on the next version.

Kim Swanson 15:00

And how should people give us that feedback or AASHTO the feedback?

Brian Johnson 15:07

They can very simply just email info at ashto resource.org with their suggestion, uh, and we will start compiling these recommendations and working on the next version of RAT.

Kim Swanson 15:21

Thanks for listening to AASHTO Resource QA. If you'd like to be a guest or just submit a question, send us an email at podcast at ashtooresource.org. Or call Brian at two four oh four three six four eight two oh. For other news and related content, check out AASHTO Resources social media accounts or go to AASHTOResource.org.