AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE metrology laboratory measurements play a key role in trade, industry and scientific laboratories without which world trade would be thrown into chaos.
The TBS Metrologist, Angela Charles said in Dar es Salaam recently that the consistent and accurate system of measurement is the foundation of any healthy economy.
“In Tanzania, the custodian of national measurement standards is the Tanzania Bureau of Standards’ Metrology Laboratory which was established with the aim of ensuring accuracy and traceability of all measurements in the country,” she said.
The government’s decision to establish the TBS metrology laboratory is part of its efforts to ensure that Tanzanians use appropriate measurements.
She said the objective of measurement is to find out the quantitative value of a physical parameter depending on the level of sophistication involved.
“The TBS metrology laboratory is an accredited laboratory which has been given the statutory responsibility for establishing custody and maintenance of the national measurement standards related to all physical parameters, at internationally accepted level of accuracy and to disseminate the International System of Units (SI) of measurement by providing traceability to the public via the national measurement standards,” she said.
The laboratory undertakes apex level calibration of measurement standards and precision instruments in various fields of measurements such as length, mass, temperature, time intervals, volume including vertical and horizontal bulk storage tanks, pressure, and electrical measurements in DC/AC voltage at low frequency as well as current and resistance.
The TBS metrology laboratory is already accredited to ISO 17025, general requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories, since 2006.
“The metrology laboratory gives confidence to service providers, protect consumers and support international businesses,” she noted adding stakeholders’ response including manufacturers to make use of the metrology laboratory has been great.
The TBS metrology laboratory is key in ascertaining quality of all products and this is why it contributes immensely to building industrial economy in the country.
Adding, “Without TBS metrology laboratory there is no quality control and industries may produce low quality goods. New industries should make use of the laboratory in order to get assured of meeting the required production standards.”
Industrial metrology ensures the adequate functioning of measurement instruments used in industry as well as production and testing process (quality in industrial activities).
It is concerned with calibration, which determines the performance characteristics of an instrument or reference materials, achieved by means of direct comparison against measurement standards or certified reference materials.
Calibration is a set of operations which establish, under specific conditions, the relationship between values indicated by a measuring instrument and corresponding known values of the standard equipment.
One of the challenges facing the bureau, Ms Charles said is the insufficient budget to procure modern equipment of metrology laboratory that concur with the global change in science and technology.
To understand the world around us, it is necessary to know how items are measured, and what the units they are measured in represent. Briefly, measurements are the basis for decisions.
“To make an informed decision, you need information and the information is very often to some kind of measures because making decisions implies knowledge of measurements,” he noted.
Metrology as the science of measurement, embracing both experimental and theoretical determinations at any level of uncertainty in any field of science and technology, establishes a common understanding of units, crucial to human activity.
Wrong measurements have very negative effects and that is why the TBS is compelled to sensitize the public in general and the industrialists in particular, on the importance of ensuring use of right measurements.
For example, when one goes to a hospital to check body temperature and is wrongly told that it is at 42oC. This means the doctor will give you wrong prescriptions.
The establishment of traceability and disseminating of the knowledge and documenting the value and accuracy of a measurement, that is documented relationship between the micrometer in a precision engineering workshop and primary laboratory of optical length metrology.
That is to say, when one measures the length of a piece of cloth in Tanzania and finds it to be one metre, the cloth should also measure one metre when measured in another laboratory in the UK or France.
