Towards a quantitative definition of perfection in chromatographic analyses

The paper published by Ghaoui and Rothman [J. High Resolut. Chromatogr. 15 (1992) 36] and particularly its Fig. 5, is further considered here because it contains the germ of an idea of how to measure improvements to a chromatographic method, and how to define the goal of perfection in terms of "zero defects" as required by quality assurance schemes. From this, a new role emerges for signal averaging in capillary chromatography: a role to quantify and measure method improvements, and one which can be generally applied to measure improvements in instrument design too.