This document specifies statistical methodology for assessing the expected agreement between two test methods that purport to measure the same property of a material, and for deciding if a simple linear bias correction can further improve the expected agreement.

This document is applicable for analytical methods which measure quantitative properties of petroleum or petroleum products resulting from a multi-sample-multi-lab study (MSMLS). These types of studies include but are not limited to interlaboratory studies (ILS) meeting the requirements of ISO 4259-1 or equivalent, and proficiency testing programmes (PTP) meeting the requirements of ISO 4259-3 or equivalent.

The methodology specified in this document establishes the limiting value for the difference between two results where each result is obtained by a different operator using different apparatus and two methods X and Y, respectively, on identical material. One of the methods (X or Y) has been appropriately bias-corrected to agree with the other in accordance with this practice. This limit is designated as the between-methods reproducibility. This value is expected to be exceeded with a probability of 5 % under the correct and normal operation of both test methods due to random variation.

NOTE      Further conditions for application of this methodology are given in 5.1 and 5.2.