AASHTO R18: Don't Suffer and Scramble

Colder weather means the season for calibrations, verifications, laboratory upkeep, and maintenance. It's also the season for Assessors to pay a visit to your lab for AASHTO R18 assessments. As a construction materials testing professional, you understand the critical importance of maintaining AASHTO R18 compliance for your laboratory's accreditation and reputation.

As the construction season slows down, take advantage by preparing your laboratory for the coming year. You may be worried about accomplishing all of your laboratory goals and staying organized, plus being on your game for an assessment. It’s time to stop worrying; construction materials testing software from Omnant is here to help you maintain AASHTO R18 compliance.

What is AASHTO R18?

AASHTO R18 is the Standard Practice for Establishing and Implementing a Quality Management System for Construction Materials Testing Laboratories. This standard outlines the requirements for construction materials testing laboratories to achieve and maintain accreditation. Compliance with AASHTO R18 is essential for laboratories seeking recognition from accreditation entities including AASHTO (AMRL), CMEC, USACE, and CCRL.

Key Requirements of AASHTO R18

Omnant provides a critical solution for your laboratory organization: an integrated AASHTO R18 function that allows you to:

• Create a key inspection document for accreditation entities including AASHTO (AMRL), CMEC, USACE, and CCRL through our comprehensive quality management system;
• Comply with guidelines and requirements for accredited testing labs;
• ...and relieve the headaches of your Lab Managers during assessments by knowing they’re well prepared and organized.

If you’re a laboratory manager or technical director, you may be familiar with the sinking feeling that’s triggered when an Assessor requests documents that you cannot locate.

Avoid Corrective Action Reports (CAR) from avoidable disorganization with Omnant’s R18 solution:

• You may already be following AASHTO R18 along with ASTM E329 in your daily operations... but are you keeping track of all of your documents in one organized place? Omnant provides a single location, organizational structure, and unlimited storage for your documents.
• Is the burden of keeping track of R18 documents too much for one person to manage? Omnant provides structure to coordinate documentation responsibilities within your team so you’re all ready when the Accreditor arrives.

Why is Omnant the Best Choice for AASHTO R18 Compliance

We've been purpose-built exclusively for construction material testing laboratories. Our all-in-one platform is designed to be your main tool to efficiently and proactively operate your CMT laboratory, ensuring AASHTO R18 compliance while building trust with clients and Accreditors.

Let’s look at 3 common Corrective Action Reports (CAR) issues:

1. Personnel Training and Certifications

Omnant addresses the challenge of capturing your team’s certifications and expiration dates through our easy certification tracking workflow. We go a step further and proactively remind you before certifications expire. Omnant allows you to quickly and easily retrieve certifications for your Assessor with just a few clicks.

Ensuring your lab personnel are properly trained and certified is critical to delivering trustworthy service to your clients. There are 2 major challenges:

• The obvious one is getting your team trained to perform the tests in general accordance with applicable standards.
• The second – and somewhat less obvious challenge – is keeping track of all of the training records, expiration dates, and making sure that personnel don’t let their certifications expire or lapse.

Our personnel administration tools have a dedicated section for personnel certifications. Every certification held by your team can be captured, solving the challenge of documenting who is trained and qualified to perform what in the lab.

Our standard features also address the challenge of tracking certification expiration dates. Omnant automatically sends an email notification before certifications expire. Managers receive a summary of which certification is about to expire for each of their supervised colleagues. Inspectors and field personnel receive an individual notification of which certification is about to expire. We proactively help you prevent getting dinged for something you and your team can be prepared for!

When the time comes for your laboratory accreditation, simply log into Omnant, select the inspector or technician, and show the training record to your Assessor. If a printed copy is needed, just click on the print icon. Easy as that!

Our all-in-one system reduces your risk and helps you be better prepared through automated compliance tracking and simplified accreditation preparation.

2. Equipment Calibration & Maintenance

With our equipment tracking, you can keep track of all of your equipment, required calibrations, and maintenance. Similar to personnel certifications, you can stay on top of scheduled maintenance events and service periods with proactive notifications. With everything documented in one place, your assessment will turn into a display of your lab’s operational competence.

Similar to certifications, the Omnant platform will remind you when a piece of equipment is due for verification or calibration. Any piece of equipment in your lab can be organized in Omnant – from nuclear gauges to air meters, slump cones to dynamic cone penetrometers, and more!

As a standard, Omnant also enables you to track exactly who has this equipment, when they have it, and where they have it with our integrated project management system. So no need to wonder where your equipment is or how long it has been in service for between calibrations. You can set helpful reminders at custom intervals for each item in the inventory so you can manage your lab exactly how you choose.

When your Assessor asks about your equipment, Omnant makes it easy to show them your records in only a few clicks – just like with personnel certifications.

3. Changes to the Quality Manual

Our digital document control log replaces any three-ring binders or shared drive documents that may be gathering dust around your lab with a purpose-built solution. Omnant puts your Quality Manual right at your fingertips. Omnant’s approach solves the problem of your manual being overlooked, forgotten about, or accidentally edited or deleted.

Any lab manager knows that the quality manual must be kept up to date in order to run a successful CMT lab. In reality, many labs struggle to keep this important document in an easily accessible location. At worst it’s a three-ring binder gathering dust in a corner... or perhaps in your lab it’s a document saved on a multipurpose shared drive. Both of these options present risk from being overlooked, forgotten about, or accidentally edited or deleted.

Being built right into your laboratory testing and reporting system means it can never be overlooked, it's right at your technicians' fingertips. You don't have to worry about accidental edits – technicians are in a read-only mode and only designated managers can make changes. And, every change made is tracked in general accordance with AASHTO R18.

Benefits of Compliance with Omnant

With Omnant, you won’t have to suffer and scramble for documents during your next accreditation. We can make your AASHTO R18 on-site assessment a breeze with a vital tool for successful laboratory management.

Plus, Omnant can be implemented in a few weeks without interrupting the current operation.

Are you ready to make your next accreditation assessment easy? Schedule your Omnant demo today!