The benefits that the implementation of quality management systems bring to testing and calibration laboratories make a compelling case for their deployment in teaching and research laboratories. The Thin Section laboratory, based at a South African university is a research and teaching laboratory currently facing funding and quality challenges and has to find ways of supplementing the grant it receives from the University. One of the ways is providing commercial testing services. Testing and calibration laboratories are required to conform to ISO/IEC 17025:2005 which is the general requirements standard for competence of calibration and testing laboratories. The Thin Section laboratory compliance to this standard can improve the quality of its services to compete with other testing laboratories.

Using laboratory experiments, surveys and interviews, this study aimed to evaluate the gap between the Thin Section laboratory processes and ISO/IEC 17025:2005 requirements, assess the ISO/IEC 17025 implementation challenges for such laboratories and evaluate the possible benefits of implementing such a system. The study found the gap between ISO/IEC 17025:2005 requirements and laboratory procedures to be wide but recommended solutions to narrow it. The findings of this study can be utilised by other teaching and research laboratories with intentions of implementing ISO/IEC 17025.