In many laboratories, quality and operations operate with the same ultimate goal but different priorities. Operations teams focus on turnaround time, productivity, staffing efficiency, and keeping workflows moving. Quality teams focus on documentation, consistency, compliance, and audit readiness.
Under pressure, those priorities can start to feel incompatible.
Operations may view quality requirements as extra steps that slow work down. Quality teams may view operational shortcuts as risks that threaten the integrity of the laboratory. Over time, the relationship can become transactional, defensive, and even adversarial.
Brian Eichelberger, PhD, has spent years working in both operations and quality environments. During a presentation at the 2026 Lab Manager Leadership Summit, he argued that the real problem is not quality itself. It’s the way laboratories frame quality inside the organization.
“The standard is not written for just having a random rulebook,” Eichelberger said. “The standard is actually written for the purpose of building a robust, well-founded, strongly operating laboratory.”
Too often, labs separate operational performance from quality performance when the two are closely tied together.
When quality gets treated like “extra work”
The tension between quality and operations usually starts with how success gets measured. Operations leaders are often evaluated on turnaround time, staffing efficiency, productivity, customer satisfaction, and financial performance. Quality leaders are evaluated on compliance, audit outcomes, documentation, and whether systems hold up under scrutiny.
On paper, both groups want the same thing: a successful laboratory. But in practice, it can feel like they are pulling in different directions.
“Quality is seen as inherently inefficient,” Eichelberger said. “We are making extra notes. We are keeping extra records. We’re dotting all our I’s, crossing all our T’s, and . . . I just need to get the sample out.”
Most lab leaders have seen this firsthand. A procedure adds three extra documentation steps. A corrective action slows down reporting. A quality review delays the release of results. Under pressure, employees start viewing compliance activities as obstacles instead of part of running a strong lab.
Once quality becomes “the thing that slows us down,” employees start looking for workarounds. Documentation gets rushed. Processes become inconsistent. People rely on memory instead of procedure. Small shortcuts become normal.
For a while, experienced staff can usually hold everything together. But eventually the cracks show up somewhere—during an audit, through customer complaints, inconsistent data, training gaps, or employee burnout.
Leadership behavior drives the relationship
One of the most interesting parts of Eichelberger’s presentation was how heavily he focused on leadership dynamics—not technical quality systems.
He described two leaders within his organization: an operations manager and a quality manager who made a conscious decision not to operate like opposing sides.
The operational leader intentionally adopted the mindset that quality’s success was tied directly to the laboratory’s success. That shifted how discussions happened across the team. Quality requirements were no longer treated like interruptions to “real work.”
At the same time, the quality manager redesigned major portions of the quality system with operational workflow in mind. The goal was not just to satisfy auditors. It was to create systems that employees could realistically follow without regularly disrupting the lab.
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The result was a much different culture. “They never conflict,” Eichelberger said. “They disagree or have different perspectives, but they do not create an environment where there is that inherent operational-quality conflict.”
That point will sound familiar to many lab professionals. Employees pay close attention to how leaders talk about quality. If operational leaders roll their eyes every time compliance comes up, staff will too. If quality teams constantly position themselves as enforcers, operations will stop engaging with them collaboratively. Leaders shape whether quality becomes integrated into the culture or treated like an external burden.
Overcomplicated systems make the problem worse
Eichelberger also highlighted how easily quality systems can become bloated and disconnected from daily operations.
When he joined the organization, the laboratory’s quality system had become difficult to maintain and hard for employees to navigate. The quality manual alone stretched to 135 pages.
Rather than continue patching the system, the team rebuilt it from the ground up.
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The revised version focused directly on how the lab met the applicable standards requirements instead of trying to serve multiple unrelated purposes. The new manual came in at roughly 35 pages and supported a much more functional system overall.
Simplifying the system did not weaken compliance. The laboratory later achieved consecutive external audits with zero findings while managing more than 100 methods within its accreditation scope.
Employees are far more likely to follow systems that are clear, practical, and connected to real workflow. Once procedures become overly complicated or disconnected from how work actually happens, frustration builds quickly.
Quality and operations need shared ownership
One of the strongest themes throughout the discussion was shared responsibility.
Quality cannot operate in isolation from the lab. But operations also cannot treat quality as someone else’s problem.
The strongest laboratories build alignment between the two groups early and reinforce it constantly. That includes:
- involving quality in operational discussions instead of bringing them in after decisions are made
- designing procedures around how work actually happens
- helping quality staff better understand operational pressures
- reinforcing that compliance and efficiency are both part of running a successful lab
During the audience Q&A, one attendee described operational frustrations caused by quality staff who lacked visibility into day-to-day laboratory processes. Eichelberger acknowledged that quality professionals do not need to become experts in every test method, but they do need enough operational understanding to build systems that work in the real world.
Some organizations address this by developing employees who can bridge both sides—people who understand operational workflow but also understand quality systems well enough to translate between the two groups.
That kind of cross-functional understanding becomes increasingly important as laboratories grow more complex and staffing pressures continue increasing.
Strong quality culture starts long before the audit
Many laboratories still approach quality reactively. The focus ramps up before inspections or external audits, then fades once the pressure passes.
But the labs that consistently perform well tend to approach quality differently. They build it into daily operations instead of treating it like a temporary compliance exercise.
Employees notice whether leaders treat quality as part of operational excellence or as a separate administrative burden. They notice whether managers work collaboratively across departments or blame each other when problems arise. Over time, those patterns shape culture far more than any procedure manual ever will.
