Approaches to establishing metrological traceability

Draft position paper to be submitted to the EA Advisory Board (EAAB)

Preamble

As metrological traceability1 is a key issue for the assessment of calibration and testing
laboratories, medical laboratories and inspection bodies, it is necessary that national
accreditation bodies (NABs) follow harmonised approaches concerning their accreditation
criteria.

Background

In a draft ILAC document (ILAC P10) on traceability three options how accredited
laboratories can establish the traceability of their calibration or test results by calibration of
their relevant equipment and reference standards are mentioned:

 by calibration provided by a National Metrology Institute (NMI) or Designated Institute

(DI) signatory to the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) of the International
Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM),
 by calibration provided by an accredited calibration laboratory with a calibration
certificate bearing the accreditation symbol of a NAB which is signatory to the ILAC
MRA,
 by calibration by another organisation provided that the calibration certificate includes
statements on measurement uncertainty and traceability and that the laboratory can
provide evidence that this organisation meets the relevant criteria of ISO/IEC 17025.

The last bullet point applies also to internal calibrations.

While the first two routes are generally agreed, the third one is controversial. This might be
the reason why the document failed to get the approval by the ILAC members in the ballot
(67% votes in favour instead of 75% which are necessary for approval). This position paper
advocates the justification of and the need for the third approach as a complement of the
others.

Rationale

First of all it is emphasised that the third option is fully compliant with the requirements of
ISO/IEC 17025 which reads: “When using external calibration services, traceability of
measurement shall be assured by the use of calibration services from laboratories that can
demonstrate competence, measurement capability and traceability. The calibration
certificates issued by these laboratories shall contain the measurement results, including the
measurement uncertainty…” This means that any restriction concerning the third option
would go beyond the relevant International Standard.

1
Metrological traceability is defined according to VIM 3 as „property of a measurement result whereby the result
can be related to a reference through a documented unbroken chain of calibrations, each contributing to the
measurement uncertainty”. Throughout this paper the term “traceability” will be used instead of “metrological
traceability” as in ISO/IEC 17025.
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This option is needed in particular if calibration of special equipment cannot be provided by
accredited organisations, but e.g. only by the producer of this equipment. In such cases it is
simply necessary for the laboratory to build upon the specific expertise of the producer or
other specialised organisations irrespective of their missing accreditation.

Furthermore, in some economies equipment used by accredited laboratories might, for legal
reasons, be subject to verification by offices of weights and measures. These verifications
should be accepted irrespective of the accreditation status of the issuing authorities provided
that the conditions concerning competence, measurement capability, traceability and the
certificates are met. This applies in particular with respect to the Joint Declaration on
Metrological Traceability of ILAC with ISO, BIPM (International Bureau for Weights and
Measures) and OIML (International Organisation for Legal Metrology). The Mutual
Acceptance Arrangement established by the latter organisation should create confidence in
the competence of its signatories in a similar way as the CIPM-MRA (see option 1) does.

Last but not least internal calibrations are of economic importance in particular in testing
laboratories with large numbers of similar equipment. As the competent performance of such
calibrations can easily be assessed by the accreditation assessors during the regular
assessments of the testing laboratory an additional accreditation as calibration laboratory is
not needed.

Conclusions

For these reasons the EAAB supports the use of all three approaches for the establishment
of traceability and calls upon the EA members to implement these approaches in their
accreditation policies with regard to traceability.

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