a) Order, which is done online from our website www.cecalait.fr, binds both ACTALIA Cecalait and the subscribing laboratory. This means that the latter undertakes to respect the following clauses and the general terms and conditions of sale. When the order is received, within the authorised registration deadline, the laboratory is registered and consequently will be consignee of the samples ordered.
ACTALIA Cecalait proposes an annual individual membership that allows you to benefit from preferential rates for proficiency testings and the supplying of biobliographical information, as well as free information through a quarterly newsletter. So, if you want to be member, please fill in and validate the form available in the customer area of your account of our website, under “My information”, “Membership” part.
b) Participation criteria: ACTALIA Cecalait reserves the right to refuse the registration of a laboratory in case there would be problems of customs with the country, internal laws preventing the parcel from arriving in the expected deadlines. Also, a customer who would not honor his invoices to ACTALIA Cecalait would see refusing its subscription. For the orders without annual subscription, they must be validated before 3 p.m. (valid from Monday to Wednesday) (except for countries outised EU, for which time before dispatch may take up 7 days, the time necessary to obtain customs documents). Each order on request will be subject to validity of the samples and availability.
c) ACTALIA Cecalait cannot be held responsible:
- for any problems linked to inappropriate handling or use.
- for any delay caused by customs of the consignee’s country, in so far as ACTALIA Cecalait produced the documents required by customs. In accordance with this point, for customers outside the European Union, the customer agrees to contact his local transport agency in order to facilitate / optimize the delivery of his package.
- for outside deadline reception of parcels and reported analyses due to a bank holiday in the destination country.
- for late delivery times if the customer has using a transport provider other than that contractually linked to ACTALIA Cecalait.
Payment will nevertheless be due.
d) Each subscription will be invoiced, according to the tariffs in force fixed by ACTALIA Cecalait, when the statistical treatments are returned to the laboratories concerning the proficiency testings, and in the course of the year for the standard reference materials.
Transport fees and the costs of customs documents, if applicable, are invoiced in addition on the invoice of each proficiency testing and for the standard reference materials, on the annual invoice (from about January to April) and on one or two additional invoices in August and December. If the carrier is chosen by the customer, the costs of transport, the costs of customs documents and packages tracking are in charge of the client.
The amount indicated corresponds to the net total to be paid by bank transfer to ACTALIA Cecalait. All local taxes, bank charges, withheld or other tax provisions specific to the country will be borne exclusively by the subscriber. All charges recorded on your payments will systematically be re-invoiced.
e) Cancellation of a registration will be considered only if ACTALIA Cecalait is notified prior to the date of dispatch of the samples. If the order is validated on your member area, the cancellation request must be sent by email to cecalait@actalia.eu, otherwise it can be deleted directly on the website. Cancellation by telephone must be confirmed by email or fax.
f) We use the communication with the user laboratories thanks the member area of our website (downloading of the blank results files, statistical data treatment, reference values…). For this communication, we use the e-mail addresses registered in the "My contacts" part in the member area of the website. These addresses can be modified, deleted or added during the course of the year, thanks to the form available in this part.
g) The customer is responsible to immediately store the package upon receipt at the appropriate temperature (freezer, room temperature, refrigerator) depending on the nature of the samples. ACTALIA Cecalait therefore disclaims any liability relating to the temperature of the package after delivery. In case of refusal to accept the package (received in time), the return costs are at the customers expense.
h) To reduce the transport fees for the client, the sending of samples may be delayed to the following day for proficiency testings and to the following week for standard reference materials, in order to couple with other samples.
i) Claim/recourse/appeal process: Claims have to be sent using your member area of our www.cecalait.fr website. They are centralized by Ms. Nadine TROSSAT (telephone +33.3.84.73.63.12 - email: n.trossat@actalia.eu). Claims specific to transport are directed to Ms. Camille BARDET (telephone +33.3.84.73.63.20 - email: c.bardet@actalia.eu). They will be responsible for recording your claim, monitoring its processing with the relevant departments and providing a response in return. The claims/appeals processing process is available upon request.
j) For proficiency tests specifically:
- Some proficiency tests proposed by ACTALIA Cecalait are covered by the scope of accreditation¨.
¨ « accréditation n°1-2473, comparaisons interlaboratoires, portée disponible sur www.cofrac.fr »/« n° 1-2473 accreditation, interlaboratory comparisons, scope available on www.cofrac.fr » according to NF EN ISO/CEI 17043 standard.
ACTALIA Cecalait is accredited for flexible scope.
With this flexible scope, ACTALIA Cecalait is considered competent to modify, develop and implement interlaboratory comparisons within the competence area covered by the general scope and according to the requirements defined in the LAB CIL REF 08 Cofrac document (available in www.cofrac.fr). .
The general scope defines the general application scope of the ACTALIA Cecalait's accreditation. The exhaustive list of the accredited interlaboratory comparisons¨ proposed is detailed only in the flexible scope. This list is available on request from ACTALIA Cecalait or via the www.cecalait.fr website.
- Eligibility criterion: all the laboratories, accredited or not, may participate in Cecalait's proficiency testings
- ACTALIA Cecalait reserves the right to cancel a criterion in the event of less than 10 laboratories participating (in order to guarantee the validity of the statistical treatment).
- Subcontracting / External service:
w In general, ACTALIA Cecalait does not use subcontractors or external service providers to carry out a proficiency test. However, various aspects of the proficiency test program may occasionally be subcontracted/carried out by an external service provider.
In this case, the participant/client is obviously notified and the service is entrusted to a competent subcontractor/service provider for whom ACTALIA Cecalait is responsible.
However, certain activities will never be subcontracted/outsourced:
- Design and planning of proficiency test programs
- Performance evaluation
- Authorization of reports
- Collusion / Falsification:
w Purpose of a proficiency test:
We remind you that the purpose of a proficiency test is to evaluate the performance of the participating laboratory. We therefore draw the participant's attention to the fact that it is in their interest and must report results obtained with integrity.
w Laboratory commitment:
The participating laboratory undertakes not to carry out collusion with other participants and undertakes not to falsify its results.
w Arrangements are made and precautions put in place to prevent collusion between participants or falsification of results.
w Sanction
However, despite these precautions, if ACTALIA Cecalait becomes aware of possible collusion/falsification, the laboratory will be sanctioned: its results in the proficiency test will not be taken into account and the laboratory will not receive the proficiency test report in which it participated. Invoicing will nevertheless be due.
- In their own interests, participating laboratories are requested to send their results back within the deadline indicated on the results sheet. If not, ACTALIA Cecalait will begin the statistical analysis and the results of latecomers will not be taken into account. In this case, the proficiency test will be invoiced in full.
- The results of the anonymous statistical data treatment and the identification number are available on the member area of each client on the website.
- The statistical data treatments following sample dispatch (as long as the dates for return of results are respected by the participants) will be returned within at most the first work day after:
- 25th day for proficiency tests on phosphatasic acitivy, acidity, lipolysis, cream, whey, concentrated whey, dried whey, pathogenic flora in cheese (3 criteria “Listeria”),
- 30th day for proficiency tests on homogenised milk, fromage frais, butter, acetone-BHB, PAG, pathogenic flora in raw milk (4 criteria), pathogenic flora in cheese (5 criteria), antibiotics and butyric spores,
- 35th day for the other proficiency tests.
- Confidentiality:
w Participation in ACTALIA Cecalait’s proficiency testings contractually implies (validation of the purchase order) the participant’s acceptance of the anonymous use of their results for purposes of general interest (determination of the assigned values, study of the improvement of methods, performance, etc.).
w The identity of the participant/customer as well as all documents and information that they have provided are treated as confidential, unless they lift confidentiality or this is agreed in advance contractually between the participant/customer and ACTALIA Cecalait.
w However, ACTALIA Cecalait may be required to disseminate this information, to disclose confidential information (in particular the results of a aptitude test):
- by contractual commitments, in particular in the case of internal or external audits.
- in exceptional circumstances, such as by law, a regulatory authority or authorized by contractual provisions.
The concerned client will then be notified in writing of this action within one week unless prohibited by law.
w Information about the participant or client obtained from a source other than the participant or client (e.g. complainant or regulatory authority) is also kept confidential. The identity of the source is kept confidential and will not be disclosed to the participant or client unless the source agrees.
- Permission to refer to the accreditation: In accordance with the rules established in the Cofrac GEN REF 11 document: “Règles générales pour la référence à l’accréditation et aux accords de reconnaissance internationaux / General rules for the reference to accreditation and international recognition agreements”, clients are not authorized to use the ACTALIA Cecalait accreditation mark. ie the Cofrac / Essais and Cofrac / Comparaisons interlaboratoires logos of ACTALIA Cecalait (apart from the complete reproduction of the documents that ACTALIA Cecalait issued to him, in particular the reports).
This document is available on the Cofrac website: www.cofrac.fr.
ACTALIA Cecalait nevertheless ensures that its clients comply with the rules established in the Cofrac GEN REF 11 document.
If ACTALIA Cecalait is aware of an incorrect use of its accreditation by one of its clients, ACTALIA Cecalait will contact this client:
- to ask him to immediately stop / modify this non-compliant use
- to inform anyone who has read it.
Also and in accordance with the GEN REF 11 document, if ACTALIA Cecalait notices an improper or abusive use of the accreditation mark, or of the Cofrac logo, it will refer to Cofrac.
- The proficiency tests will be invoiced as follow:
w a fixed part, registration fees, which covers the costs of organisation, registration, management of the participants and packaging of the samples.
w a variable part, participation fees, which is proportional to the number of analytes or methods that the participating laboratory has subscribed for, and the number of additional results returned. It covers the costs of treatment for a single data set, management of the participants and reporting of the results by ACTALIA Cecalait. Any result returned to ACTALIA Cecalait is invoiced.
w any criteria can present a supplementary cost which corresponds to the supply of specific samples.
w transport fees and costs of customs documents, if applicable.
- ACTALIA Cecalait cannot be held responsible for any problem related to the proficiency testing results of a laboratory.
- Concerning recourse / appeal, if you have a claim regarding the evaluation of your performance, please inform us (by post or by email) within 2 weeks after receiving the report of proficiency testing. In this case, we will contact you for the processing of your claim.
k) For standard reference materials specifically:
- An annual subscription corresponds to an order of a same criteria, of a same SRM, for at least 6 consecutive months. The cost is in this case proportional to the number of samples still to be sent. The transport fees are invoced
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w In Europe: the delivery time is generally 1 to 3 days depending on the country and the city
w Intercontinental: the delivery time is generally 1 to 4 days depending on the country and the city.
Please inquire in advance about customs deadlines and regulations specific to your country (administrative import formalities which are your responsibility and which have an impact on deadlines).
Please note that it may take up to 7 days before shipping to obtain customs documents for export.
On condition for the dispatch to certain destinations, please contact us concerning this point
Accreditation no 1-5577, tests, no 1-2473 interlaboratory comparisons, scope available on www.cofrac.fr/en
