Gabriel Hughes was once asked to calibrate a 2x4 at a previous job. While this may sound strange, the customer sent it in to have the precise dimensions calibrated. The wood was used to keep a door closed at a certain height, which they needed to monitor because of airflow.

If you want to get technical, this topic is better dealt with by others since it is a quality matter rather than dimensional metrology where I hide out. But, disputes go on every day over measurements and sometimes resolving them can be quite challenging—when possible. 

Hitachi High-Tech Analytical Science Americas, Inc. announces that its calibration laboratory received the acclaimed American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) for their Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) product line.

Calibration laboratories that receive the A2LA accreditation are held to the highest standards published by the Organization for Standardization (ISO) meaning that they meet requirements for competence of testing and calibration laboratories covered under ISO 17025.

The term ‘proficiency testing’ is one that every accredited calibration laboratory is quite familiar with. In basic terms it refers to a method of evaluating how well a laboratory is doing a particular calibration with respect to its claimed measurement uncertainty and how it fares with other participants.

This question is prompted by another round-robin type study involving the calibration of thread plug gages, the results of which were predictable because similar studies over the past twenty years or so have produced similar results.

Like any other commercial enterprise, calibration laboratories cannot be all things to all people.

Metrology comes from the Greek word metro, meaning “to measure something.” Therefore metrology is the science and practice of measurement.