Traceable and efficient calibrations in the process industry

摘要

Calibration is an essential element of any instrumentation maintenance program. When creating products from raw materials, measurements affect the quality of the final product. At worst, inaccurate measurements result in products that cannot be sold or have to be recalled from the customers who already bought the defective product. However, sometimes calibration operations can be long and time-consuming. By planning the process and using the right tools for calibration, quality and efficiency can be improved and costs lowered substantially. An automated calibration planning system with documenting process calibrators and calibration management software provides the greatest net returns under the following circumstances: (1) When the plant is highly regulated. (ISO, FDA, etc.). (2) When current calibration procedures are highly labour-intensive due to a large number of instruments, a large variety of instruments, a particularly complicated set of calibration procedures, or a particularly cumbersome set of paper-based reporting procedures. (3) When a large percentage of instruments have discretionary calibration intervals (that is, when most instruments do need to be calibrated at fixed intervals for regulatory, safety, or quality reasons or because access is limited to specific maintenance periods). (4) When the instruments to be calibrated must meet a wide variety of tolerance, safety, and quality requirements, especially when some requirements are stricter than others. (5) When a large number of plant personnel must coordinate their efforts either to perform calibration work or to review the results.