Ed, There is no reason that you cannot do exactly what you propose. The un-calibrated stimulus equipment is irrelevant. As long as you measure and monitor and record with calibrated equipment, it matters not how you obtain the stimulus. In a past life I worked at a ISO 9001 certified manufacturer. All ISO 9001 says is to do what you say and say what you do. So if you have the written procedures in place to describe how you stimulate with NCR equipment, but monitor with currently calibrated equipment, you are doing what your procedures say you are doing and ISO 900x is happy.
As for the metrology shop demanding "everything" be calibrated, ask them to show you specific page, paragraph and rule from what standard this is required. Bet they can't do it. Most likely they will quote some generic paragraph that needs to be "translated" for them to come up with this requirement. And, most important, you are the customer and end-user. If you do not want your equipment calibrated, that should be your call, not theirs. It should be up to your project reviewer, reporting official, manager, whatever, to decide if you are doing acceptable work with un-calibrated equipment. Maybe you need to raise this up the chain of command. Good luck. Scott Douglas NARTE Certified Product Safety Engineer Email: [email protected] Price, Ed wrote: In some ways, I have the luxury of having a Metrology Department that maintains the periodic calibration on all of my test equipment. OTOH, as a "customer" of this Metrology Department's "product", I would like to have some control over my overhead costs. And my latest bright idea has me getting stomped by the gurus of the status quo. I need to get smarter about how a calibration system works, and how flexible it can be. My lab has about 500 pieces of capital equipment, and the way I see it, all my equipment falls into one of two categories. The first category consists of those instruments which are used to measure the parameters of our company's products, and determine if the performance of those products falls within a range of acceptable tolerance. Data from these measurements is often contractually reported to our customers. Every equipment within this category needs to be maintained on a program of periodic, traceable calibration. But then there's the second category; which consists of support and stimulus equipment. Items here are old analog signal generators, function generators, amplifiers, pulse generators, sweepers and power supplies. To me, none of this equipment needs ANY periodic calibration. I base this on practical usage. Who can accurately read a power supply mechanical 80-amp ammeter that has a 1.5" long scale? Who can set a function generator frequency control that covers 2 decades, logarithmically, in 270 degrees of rotation? If I need to apply a 100 kHz signal in bursts of 2 milliseconds at a 1 Hz rate, I'll use a calibrated, traceable oscilloscope to set the uncalibrated generator to exactly what I need. The same for that power supply; if I need to know the current to 2% or better, I'll use a calibrated resistor and a calibrated DMM. And I couldn't care less about the gain of an RF power amplifier, as long as it pumps out enough power to create the field I need. Now, I'm not trying to justify the use of distorted, unstable or junky equipment. I'm just trying to spend my calibration dollars the most efficient way. And the way I see it, about 1/4 of my equipment fits my definition of not needing periodic calibration because I can monitor the results with calibrated equipment. So I proposed that these items be tagged with some kind of "uncalibrated" or "user verified" or "no calibration required" label. The gurus of Metrology say this can't be done, our ISO9000 Quality System will not allow this. I can't understand how a customer-oriented quality system can't be crafted to meet the needs of all of the customers of that system. And I suppose I'm felling a bit squeezed, what with my customers expecting me to use COTS equipment to function in military environments. I have to get more out of what I have, and the old military concept of everything in sight is on periodic calibration has to yield to current reality. So, am I getting shoveled upon regarding the impossibility of having a category of officially non-calibrated equipment alongside my calibrated equipment? How have you dealt with calibration program costs? Regards, Ed Ed Price [email protected] WB6WSN NARTE Certified EMC Engineer & Technician Electromagnetic Compatibility Lab Cubic Defense Applications San Diego, CA USA 858-505-2780 (Voice) 858-505-1583 (Fax) Military & Avionics EMC Is Our Specialty
