A friend in the industry contacted me recently for suggestions on dealing with a request from a customer of their calibration service requesting the results of vision tests on their lab people. It appears that their customer’s customer—a large aerospace company—has made this a mandatory requirement for all of their suppliers and any suppliers to them.
At first blush, it would seem to be an unnecessary requirement for a typical dimensional calibration facility where, if the staff couldn’t read the displays, especially the digital versions, they’d probably have trouble finding their way to work. Obviously, the request is quite reasonable where different types of optical instruments are in use and since optical comparators, optical flats and devices with Vernier scales etc. are used in dimensional work it could become an issue. Similarly, it could be argued that poor vision could impair the discernment of pointer position on analog displays.