THE ROLE OF ACCREDITATION IN INTERNATIONAL METROLOGY AND QUALITY ASSURANCE

摘要

The achievement of an appropriate accuracy of measurement is necessary for effective quality control in industrial enterprise. The majority of industrialized nations, therefore, have a metrological infrastructure to support industrial measurements. To give assurance of measurement accuracy to the customer, it is necessary to demonstrate the capability of the laboratory. This is equally true for both domestic as well as foreign customers. To serve this purpose, many nations have national calibration services or laboratory accreditation systems that give industry access to national measurement standards through accredited or authenticated services of calibration. The preferred mechanism for facilitating acceptance of measurements between countries appears to be the mutual recognition of national laboratory accreditation systems. In particular, the European Community (EC) is aggressively pursuing various programs to establish confidence in each country's measurement systems as part of the establishment of an "internal market" by 1992. Thus, the EC along with the Western European Calibration Cooperation (WECC) has developed several guidance documents for this purpose including recommended contents of mutual recognition agreements between laboratory accreditation bodies.