When I worked in a lab I always tried be general in the requirement, i.e. A 47 mm glass fiber filter with a nominal pore size of 1.5 um. And then give a specific example with the 'or equivalent' qualifier, i.e. Environmental Express ProWeigh - P/N FG93447MM or equivalent.  (Yes, this is a shameless plug for one of our products  )I did the same thing with reagents, give the requirement that the reagent must meet, either in grade, purity, concentration, or whatever else, and then give an example.  That helped document exactly what to order when an item needed to be replaced/restocked and gave me flexibility to change without having to rewrite the SOP.  When I did my yearly SOP review I would try to change references as needed, but if I missed a few here or there it wasn't a big deal.

We include manufacturer, vendor, part name, model number, part number as appropriate.  This helps us in two ways:  (1) there's no question what to buy and what vendor to use; (2) consistency and even useability at the bench.  An example of the latter is the filter type, brand, etc. we use for filtering metals.  After a lot of work running filter blanks, we chose a particular type of filter and manufacturer.  Along with that, we located the vendor with the best price.  We have done "studies" such as this for a surprising variety of the things we use in the lab.  Sticking the info in the SOP saves a lot of time for newbies and helps maintain consistency of results.

Chuck Lytle,
City of Porland, OR

Quote:

You think you are joking, but anyone who has contracts with the DOD (or most likely any other federal body) has to have a SOP on writing SOP's, as well as updating SOP's, using LIMS, recording temperature readings from a thermometer, and any other normal activities in your facility.