There are so many reasons why we need to perform a calibration. Some reasons are:
For public or consumer protection, like the example above to get the value of the money we spend on a product or services.
For a technical reason, we need to calibrate because as components age or equipment undergo environmental or mechanical stress, its performance gradually degrades.
This degradation is what we call the ‘drift‘. When this happens, the results or performance generated by certain equipment will be unreliable where design and quality suffer. We cannot eliminate drift, but through the process of calibration, it can be detected and contained.
There are also practical reasons for implementing calibration. Calibration will eliminate doubts and provide confidence when we encounter the below situations with our instruments:
when there is a newly installed or purchased instruments
instruments that are mishandled during transfer (for example: dropped or fell)
when instrument performance is questionable
calibration period is overdue
kept to an unstable environment for too long (exposed to vibrations or too high/low temperatures)
when a new setting, repair, and/or adjustment is performed
While detecting an inaccuracy is one of the main reasons for calibration, some other reasons are:
Customer requirements – they want to ensure that the product they buy is within the expected specifications.
Requirements of a government or statutory regulations – they want to make sure that products produced are safe and reliable for the public
Audit requirements– as a requirement for achieving a certification like ISO 9001:2015 certification and ISO 17025 accreditations
Quality and Safety requirements– a reliable and accurate operation through proper use of inspection instruments provides a great deal of confidence for everyone
Process requirements – to ensure that the product produced is the most accurate and reliable, some operations will not be executed unless the equipment has passed the calibration and verification process, and used in equipment or product qualifications as part of quality control.
