Metrology Function Research Articles

Quality approach towards ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation at the center of analysis and characterization of Marrakesh Cadi Ayyad University: metrology stakes

In the context of the European Tempus project “Quality in Higher Agricultural Education in the Mediterranean (QESAMED)”, Analysis and Characterization Center of Cadi Ayyad University has committed to implement a quality approach according to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard. The first objective was to accredit the testing carried out in the microbiology laboratory in response to strong demand from the food industry in the Marrakesh region. The process began with an initial assessment of the center activities to identify the main gaps from ISO/IEC 17025. The range of laboratory and standard testing to be accredited were determined and an appropriate action plan was established. After that, a staff training was programmed to improve their skills in relation to this standard and metrology concepts. Implementation of the metrology function is one of the key steps for the deployment of the continuous improvement process. This function guarantees the traceability of measurements and the reliability of microbiological testing results. Several actions have been carried out, including: (i) identification of critical quantities and associated metrological requirements, (ii) checking of the metrological consistency of equipment through the calculation of the capability coefficient. The management of equipment requires several steps, from receipt of the equipment to its decommissioning or reform: (i) identification of the equipment, (ii) creation of equipment files, (iii) performance of calibration, verification, and maintenance operations. Ultimately, the definition of a strategy ensuring metrological traceability will optimize management costs by taking into account the structural constraints linked to the organization of metrology on a national scale.

Evaluation of implementation of good quality management practices related to the support processes in the laboratories of Moroccan faculties of sciences and techniques

The evaluation practices in the higher education in Morocco constitute a constitutional and legal requirement and also respond to the requirements of the national and international environment in perpetual evolution. To identify the level of application of good quality management practices related to the scientific research in Morocco, a questionnaire was administered to the research laboratories managers of the faculties of sciences and techniques on a national scale with a percentage of answer of 33 %. This paper concerns the evaluation of the implementation of theses good practices related to the support processes such as the management of material, human and informational resources. The results of this study showed the dissatisfaction of the majority of laboratories managers with regard to their availability. Besides, a minority of the laboratories respect practices related to the control of the function metrology and to the storage and the traceability of reagents. More than two-thirds managers asserted that their research teams are established on the basis of the affinities of the thematic of research of the researchers and are convinced of the homogeneity of the composition of the laboratory teams. This study emphasizes the necessity of increasing investment in the domain of scientific research to improve the availability of the resources. It is also necessary to sensitize the laboratory staff to the importance of the implementation and control of the metrology function to assure reliability of the research results.

OS DESAFIOS DA METROLOGIA POR COORDENADAS NOS PROCESSOS DE CONTROLO DAS ESPECIFICAÇÕES DIMENSIONAIS E GEOMÉTRICAS DE COMPONENTES TÉCNICOS, NO NOVO PARADIGMA DA INDÚSTRIA 4.0

The production of highly complex technical components with a large number of specifications requires companies to have expeditious means of control to carry out the conformity assessment. In this context, the metrology is an important resource in support of innovation and development processes and production processes, and allows monitoring of technological progress according to the principles of industry 4.0. In companies, the need to guarantee the reliability of the production process, ensuring dimensional and geometrical compliance of the technical components, requires to metrology technical resources increasingly sophisticated, able to ensuring a good performance of the metrological function. Given the need to ensure compliance of the dimensional and geometrical specifications of the technical components, these can be controlled with coordinate measuring machines, a technology that promotes rapid controls and with the capacity to generate a large volume of data, facilitating interaction with the production process, seeking to guarantee their conformity.

Smart metrology: the importance of metrology of decisions in the big data era

The beginning of the 21st century has seen the birth of a new industrial revolution, the digital revolution: the ability to store data from various sources (in particular through related items) in unprecedented big quantities and to exploit them through more and more high computing capabilities using artificial intelligence techniques (IA). In this new scenario called “Big Data,” data reliability becomes an indispensable property: the large amount of data collected and their analysis are completely useless if untrusted information is stored that cannot help understanding a complex reality. Here is the role of metrology: to ensure the reliability of measured data. Smart Metrology is the implementation of a revised metrological function, oriented to reliability, rather than simply on complying with standards: ensuring reliability of measurements, knowing and mastering measurement uncertainty to make relevant decisions. This paper is a summary of issues for business metrology.

Reliability and survivability analysis of narrowband power-line communication links in low-voltage building network applications

Recent developments in power-line communication (PLC) based power automation and security systems are transforming into smart automation for low-voltage building network applications. This paper presents reliability and survivability analysis of G3-PLC compliant modems that aims to develop working pilot models for security as well as for complete NIT Kurukshetra campus buildings automation. In order to verify the proposed hardware design and implementation of G3-PLC system along with necessary theoretical background. Development of G3-PLC based virtual instrument to run-time couple local/remote monitoring and control of the building has been major outcome. The presented proposed design with open source platform, which is re-usable with requirement based customization, simple, user-friendly and validated through implementation. The system based on this logic can also be used for smart metrology meter (SMM) applications (i.e. metrological functions and real-time monitoring functions) and an effective tool for connecting the global consumers through energy efficiency and awareness corridor.

Métrologie à l’EFS : de la production à la raison

In order to answer statutory requirements and to anticipate the future needs and standards, the EFS is committed, since a few years, in a process of harmonization of its metrology function. In particular, the institution has opted for the skills development by internalizing the metrological traceability of the main critical quantities (temperature, volumetric) measurements. The development of metrology so resulted in a significant increase in calibration and testing activities. Methods are homogenized and improved through accreditations. The investment strategies are based on more and more demanding specifications. The performance of the equipments is better known and mastered. Technical expertise and maturity of the national metrology function today are assets to review in more informed ways the appropriateness of the applied periodicities. Analysis of numerous information and data in the calibration and testing reports could be pooled and operated on behalf of the unique establishment. The objective of this article is to illustrate these reflections with a few examples from of a feedback of the EFS Pyrénées Méditerranée. The analysis of some methods of qualification, the exploitation of the historical metrology in order to quantify the risk of non-compliance, and to adapt the control strategy, analysis of the criticality of an instrument in a measurement process, risk analyses are tools that deserve to be more widely exploited for that discipline wins in efficiency at the national level.

Recommendations on the metrology and the control of the quality of the critical equipments

Metrology resumes activities which allow the management of results measurement quality. In this paper, we present basic principles of metrology applied to the activities of laboratory medicine. We successively treat general concepts useful for laboratory staff, the interest in the definition of a metrological function and its activities field, the applications in measuring instruments necessary for the exams of medical biology, and the specific documentation control needed.

Metrological assurance at industrial enterprise: Problems and solutions

Conceptual and systematic issues regarding the design of metrological assurance system at an industrial enterprise are considered. The system is constructed as a part of quality management system of the enterprise; process approach forms methodological foundation in development and operation of the system. The processes of implementing metrological functions, as well as the system of enterprise standards regulating control mechanisms for these processes are described.

Problématique de la mise en place d'une unité de métrologie dans le futur centre de biologie du CHRU de Lille

Regional and University Hospitals of Lille holds many of analysis laboratories with a great diversity of biology specialities. To date, a great biology center is building to accommodate there all these laboratories at the beginning of 2007. In this biology center, a room of metrology is foreseen where will be carried out the update of the metrological checks on the equipment concerned and the metrological traceability. The analysis laboratories of medical biology must have a perfect control of their equipment within the framework of the analytical process in order to ensure the quality of their results. This first work is a reflection on the failures of the metrology function within the laboratories from the biomedical point of view. Finally, the objective will be to provide to the laboratories of a coherent and homogeneous metrology tool to all the specialities of the biology of the CHRU of Lille to the service of their quality assurance.

Digital closed-loop nanopositioning using rectilinear flexure stage and laser interferometry

To enhance the accuracy of nanopositioning and the metrological capability of scanning probe microscopy, we construct a two-dimensional interferometric nanopositioning system consisting of rectilinear flexure stage, calibrated laser interferometer, and digital feedback control system. We implement a correlation matrix, determined by the piezoelectric constant and the crosstalk between two axes, into the closed-loop control algorithm to compensate the nonlinearity and the crosstalk of the PZT-driven stage. In the tests on nanopositioning, the 1-nm-step motion and the tracking along a 1-nm-radius circular target path are accomplished to verify the short-term repeatability and the subnanometer-level precision. Additionally, a scanning tunneling microscope equipped with the interferometric nanopositioning system is built up to demonstrate the metrological functions of scanning probe microscopy.

Design and analysis of a tripod machine tool with an integrated Cartesian guiding and metrology mechanism

This paper introduces a novel parallel kinematic mechanism (PKM) machine called Cartesian-Guided Tripod (CGT) developed for high-speed machining of precise dies and molds. CGT has two kinds of functional independent legs, the driving functional leg and the integrated Cartesian guiding/metrology functional leg, parallel-linked to the platform. The guiding/metrology functional leg constraints and measures the platform motions in Cartesian coordinates. Because of the separation of metrology function from the drive mechanisms, the metrology loop of CGT is immunized to the geometric-, thermal-, and force-induced errors of the drive mechanisms. Another feature of this CGT is that the kinematic parameters can be auto-calibrated on line. CGT has explicit solutions of the inverse and forward kinematic analysis. This allows system specifications, such as the footprint/workspace ratio, maximum Cartesian speed/acceleration and even stiffness, be easily related to the machine component specifications. The CGT drive mechanism can be divided into two basic types: sliding leg and telescoping leg. The telescoping leg CGT has the higher edges in the kinematic categories than the sliding leg CGT. Conversely, the sliding leg CGT has better static rigidity and dynamic stiffness than the telescoping leg CGT.

Metrology at Philip Morris Europe

Abstract The importance of the metrology function at Philip Morris Europe (PME), a multinational organisation producing at over 40 sites in the European, Middle Eastern and African Regions is presented. Standardisation of test methods and equipment as well as the traceability of calibration gauges to the same reference gauge are essential in order to obtain comparable results among the various production centers. The metrology function as well as the qualification of instruments and the drafting of test and calibration operating procedures for this region are conducted or co-ordinated by the Research and Development Department in Neuchatel, Switzerland. In this paper the metrology function within PME is presented based on the measurement of the resistance to draw for which the PME R&D laboratory is accredited (ISO/CEI 17025), as both a calibration and a testing laboratory. The following topics are addressed in this paper: traceability of calibration standards to national standards; comparison of results among manufacturing centres; the choice, the budget as well as the computation of uncertainties. Furthermore, some practical aspects related to the calibration and use of the glass multicapillary gauges are discussed.

TA priori evaluation of error in measurements of deviation from rectilinearity

Analysis of the state of metrological methods for measuring deviation from rectilinearity and planarity of surfaces indicates that at the present time in industry hundreds of thousands of measurement devices (MD) are in use, the range of which comprises dozens of types. Both specialized and universal instruments are widely used in various branches of industry (machinetool building, heavy energy and transport machine building, ship building, aircraft building, etc.) to measure deviation from rectilinearity. The variety of engineering problems the solution of which requires measurements of deviation from rectilinearity and the corresponding variety of conditions in which these measurements are carried out, as well as the high requirements on their reliability, make the problem of evaluating error in measurement devices an entirely timely one. Error in working measurements is evaluated, as a rule, from the nominal metrologicaI characteristics of the measurement devices established in accordance with technical documentation and monitored through test procedures. In specific cases corrections are introduced to take influence functions into account. It is evident that the nominal metrological characteristics established by designers for certain definite conditions of use of MD do not take into account and, it is clear, cannot take into account the significant deviations possible in practice of the real conditions of use of MD from those for which the nominal metrological characteristics and influence functions were established. Thus, in measurements of deviation from rectilinearity of surfaces, the error in the result depends significantly on the characteristics of roughness and ripple of the surface. When optical instruments with open channels are used, random fluctuations in the index of refraction of the air in the line of measurement depending on local temperature and pressure gradients make a significant contribution to the error of the measurement. These and other sources of error in measurements under real conditions are in practice impossible to take into account in establishing the nominal metrological characteristics and influence functions without unjustified "hardening" of the MD. On the other hand, in these measurements information on the actual values of the measurement error, which with mathematical processing can be used to construct reliable a posteriori evaluations of the precision of the results, is preserved. In direct working measurements the result is obtained, as a rule, on the basis of a single measurement of the object, and the error is determined from known metrological characteristics of the MD. Experimental evaluation of the random component of the error is not used in the majority of practical instances, with the exception, perhaps, of measurements performed during research work. A basic factor limiting the use of a posteriori evaluation of error is the cost of performing and processing multiple observations. General introduction of measurement devices based on microcomputers and microprocessors is significantly reducing this limitation but is not removing it completely. The problem is that the time spent on a series of observations is determined not only by the speed of the recording apparatus but also by the spectral properties of the error: the frequency of readings taken should not significantly exceed the width of the error spectrum, i.e. the series of observations should not be performed over a too short time interval, since this leads to shifting (lowering) of the error evaluation. Moreover, for reliable evaluation of the error, the series should be sufficiently long, and so it is necessary in practice to perform ten to twenty times more observations than in error evaluation carried out using the predetermined metrological characteristics of the MD.

Underwater acoustic measurement facilities at NRL/USRD

At the beginning of World War II, the United States recognized the need for establishing systematic methods for calibrating and evaluating sonar transducers and established the Underwater Sound Reference Laboratories. The Underwater Sound Reference Detachment of the Naval Research Laboratory evolved from this beginning and now serves as the focus for underwater acoustic metrology in the United States. It functions as a ‘‘National Bureau of Standards for Underwater Acoustics’’ by providing two types of reference services for a fee. Calibration, test, and evaluation services and standard transducer loan services cover the frequency range of 0.2 Hz to 2 MHz. This paper covers the measurement facilities for carrying out the metrology function and the measurement methods for setting the primary standards and the loan standards. Evaluation of sonar transducers and some of the ongoing research in calibration measurement methodology is also discussed. Finally, some comments are made about calibration system requirements for implementing new measurement techniques.

Neutron measurement support for radiation material science in research reactors

The authors discuss the need for development of a support system for unity in neutron measurement. Basic problems are outlined with regard to the support of neutron measurement unity for specialized service, such as research of working neutron fields, monitoring neutron fields during irradiation, and classification, analysis and storage of information about the controlled neutron field. Methods of realizing the metrological functions of the Metrological Center of Neutron Measurements are discussed as is the technical equipment used by the Center.

Development of Modular-Type Measuring System for Evaluation of Machining Accuracy

Summary Higher flexibility and machining accuracy have been imposed on manufacturing shops in recent years, and it is demanding highly versatile and accurate inspection lines in shops to improve productivity and accuracy of machining parts. At the same time, highly sophisticated measuring techniques and analysing methods are required to identify sources of machining errors. In the present study, functions and geometries of machined parts for industrial use are classified based on the parts family concept, and they are related to metrological functions required to satisfy the design target. Functions of conventional industrial measuring instruments are categorized to extract basic metrology functions. The basic concept of modular-type measuring system is developed based on the basic metrology functions, which fulfills most versatile metrological functions with minimum components. A proto-type system was constructed, which consists of a precision rotary table, a vertical guide, a horizontal guide and a measuring head. The system was employed to measuring tasks of large size cam profiles with the aid of computerized data processing system based on the least squares method. Satisfactory results were obtained with the nodular-type measuring system developed.