Calibration is essential to the running of a world class facility If you’re in manufacturing you’ll be only too aware that it is a knowledge-intensive business. For the majority of manufacturers focus is on quality, reliability, cost and low-environmental impact through the product life cycle from development to manufacture, usage and disposal. In cases where clients make high-tech products such as medical devices or pharmaceuticals, the complexity of the assembly process and the tight tolerances that manufacturers have to work to leaves no margin for error.
A cross between an art and a science
In our experience, high-quality calibration services are a science drawing you to the very heart of manufacturing. In almost every facility we have worked in, calibration intervals are based on standard operating procedure recommendations. In most cases variables like performance of the instruments over time, number of instruments onsite, full loop uncertainties of each instrument and sometimes the number that have been found out of tolerance are overlooked when setting calibration intervals.
The scale of improvement can be staggering
The impact of doing a thorough review of calibration and testing at intervals with suitably qualified experts can be enormous. In a recent case where reclassification of instrumentation was combined with statistical analysis of historical calibration data a reduction of 51.67% in annual calibration and testing tasks were achieved.
What would that kind of reduction do for your engineering budget?
It all makes for a more efficient and less stressful environment
There are a number of additional benefits to applying genuine rigor to classification and calibration frequency. The most immediate is that hard-pressed calibration and maintenance staff can move from a largely reactive service to a proactive one. Analyzing the instrument data at a granular level enables workloads can be much more effectively planned and managed.
Ultimately this all leads to greater operation efficiency and a happier calibration and maintenance department!
