Quality management system guide – How to implement ISO 9001: 2015?
How to determine the process of supervision over measuring instruments (metrological traceability)?
Ensuring metrological traceability according to ISO 9001 consists in:
- determining the list of measuring instruments that we use in our processes,
- determining how often a given device is used and under what conditions,
- what accuracy of indications must be shown by a given instrument.
On this basis, let’s determine whether we calibrate a given device:
- based on the standard you have (when the required accuracy class is very low)
- in an external calibration laboratory (when the required accuracy class is low)
- in an external accredited calibration laboratory (when the required accuracy class is medium or high)
and we define how often we calibrate:
- once per month (a high accuracy class is required, it is often used in harsh conditions)
- once a quarter (an average accuracy class is required, it is moderately used in severe conditions)
- every six months (a medium or high accuracy class is required, it is rarely used in severe conditions or often in light conditions)
- once a year (a medium or high accuracy class is required, it is very rarely used in severe conditions or rarely in light conditions)
- every two years (it is used occasionally in a laboratory)
A calibration frequency of less than once every two years should not be taken into account, unless the instrument is an indicator or is used for ‘more or less’ measurements.
We create a list of measuring instruments that we have. We do this using an infrastructure supervision sheet (the same one used to supervise infrastructure) or an infrastructure management application. Then, we set calibration dates for individual items. We indicate who watches over the calibration frequency. We mark the instruments with stickers or plates with inventory numbers (number from the list). We keep to the calibration deadlines and we can safely say that we have supervised measuring instruments!
Oh, if a given instrument is damaged (which happens), we service it first and then calibrate it.