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Each year, World Quality Week highlights the role of quality in advancing trust, safety, and innovation across industries. The 2025 theme, “Quality: Think Differently,” invites us to challenge convention — to view quality not as a fixed process, but as a mindset that fuels progress.
Within the Microbiology Division at Thermo Fisher Scientific, that mindset is central to everything we do. Our products are used globally to help diagnose disease, ensure food safety, and verify that medicines are safe before reaching patients. The consequences of getting it wrong are too important to ignore — which is why we work every day to get it right.
Quality as a shared responsibility
For our teams, quality assurance is not confined to one department or job title. It’s a shared responsibility that unites colleagues across functions — from product design and manufacturing to regulatory affairs and customer service.
As Carissa Courtney, Global Quality Management Systems Director, explains:
“Quality assurance doesn’t stop at the doors of the QA team — it’s everybody’s job to make sure products are safe, efficient, and fit for purpose.”
This belief underpins how the Microbiology Division approaches its mission. Quality is built into every step of the product lifecycle, from development through delivery. It’s not simply about checking boxes — it’s about embedding care, rigour, and accountability into our daily work.
Thinking differently about compliance
Compliance forms the foundation of trust, but true quality goes beyond meeting requirements. Our teams operate to globally recognised standards, including ISO 35485 for in vitro diagnostic devices and ISO 17025 for prepared culture media. We also maintain Medical Device Single Audit Programme (MDSAP) accreditation, enabling us to meet regulatory expectations across the United States, Canada, Brazil, Japan, and Australia.
However, our commitment to quality extends beyond certification. Across the division, teams use robust internal monitoring systems to identify potential risks, investigate issues, and put corrective and preventive actions (CAPAs) in place to strengthen our processes. This proactive approach ensures that when challenges arise, they are resolved quickly and constructively — turning every lesson learned into an opportunity for improvement.
A culture of continuous improvement
Quality is not static; it evolves. Within the Microbiology Division, continuous improvement is a defining feature of how we work. Whether through process reviews, data analysis, or customer feedback, every insight helps us refine our products and strengthen our systems.
Even when issues occur, they are viewed as chances to do better. Each investigation is handled with transparency and collaboration, ensuring that outcomes — from CAPAs to vigilance processes — lead to lasting improvement and a stronger, more resilient quality culture.
By thinking differently about quality, our teams don’t just react — they anticipate. They innovate. They find smarter, safer ways to deliver reliable results, every time.
Quality: A personal commitment
While quality control remains the final checkpoint before a product reaches a customer, the most important work happens long before that. Our people work tirelessly to ensure our products are right the first time — because they understand what’s at stake.
In microbiology, quality has a direct impact on human health and safety. Every test, every result, and every product carries with it the weight of trust. And that’s why, for us, quality is personal
World Quality Week 2025 is a reminder that the best way to maintain excellence is to keep evolving — to question, to innovate, and to think differently about what quality can achieve.
Discover more about how the Thermo Fisher Scientific Microbiology Division makes quality personal in our latest SmartNote: Making Quality Personal: The Thermo Fisher Scientific Approach to Quality Assurance
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