German Armed Forces Test & Measurement Equipment CALIBRATION OF LARGE NUMBER OF TEST & MEASUREMENT EQUIPMENT

Test- and Measurement Equipment / Calibration

Bundeswehr Logistics Office

1

German Armed Forces Test & Measurement Equipment

CALIBRATION OF LARGE NUMBER OF TEST & MEASUREMENT

EQUIPMENT

LtCol Gerhard Mihm


Technical Center for Information Technology and Electronics

Background: Project manager for Test & Measurement Equipment and Project

manager for Calibration of the German Armed Forces Workload: 200.000 pieces of equipment to be calibrated, 75.000

calibration per year, 8000 different part numbers Aim is to ensure that test & measurement equipments in use fulfill

the requirements for the measurements to be taken Aim is to do the calibrations efficiently and most economic by

ensuring to meet the needs of the customers and in accordance with existing standards (ISO 9000, ISO 17025, ISO 10012)



Learning Objectives: Benefit of ISO 10012: Standardisation of requirements for test &

measurement equipment Benefit of storing specifications of metrological confirmation in a

central database Reducing number of calculations of measurement uncertainties for

test & measurement equipment to be calibrated in accordance with ISO 17025



ISO 10012:2003 is the ISO standard that specifies generic requirements and provides guidance for the management of measurement processes and metrological confirmation of measuring equipment used to support and demonstrate compliance with metrological requirements. It specifies quality management requirements of a measurement management system that can be used by an organization performing measurements as part of the overall management system, and to ensure metrological requirements are met.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_management



I. Responsibility of the Projectmanager



Introduction Of Materiel- In compliance with the existing logistic system

Logistic Support

EUFOR

KFOR

ISAF

ENDURING FREEDOM

UN-Missions

UNIFIL



Introduction Of Materiel

- more than just purchasing

- maintenance concept and supplementary equipment repair concepts must exist

- integration in logistic system mandatory

- material / products used should be as standardized as possible to reduce variety of P/N.



Introduction Of MaterielPhases of planning and introduction

Analysis Planning Introduction Use

Detection of Demand Covering Of Demand Use Of Products



Analysis

- Test & Measurement Requirements- Identification of the respective cases of application and their requirements - Definition of physical quantities to be measured

Analysis Planning Introduction Use

Detection of Demand Covering Of Demand Use Of Products



II. Documentation and repair



Technical Manuals for repair and inspection Technical training includes - handling of test & measurement equipment - Understanding of the meaning and use of technical documentation necessary characteristics for repair and technical examination of the

respective product are the baseline for the selection of the test & measurement equipment to be used



III. Metrological supervision / calibration



For the metrological supervision the German armed forces - like other partner nations in NATO - is staffed with military calibrators with the necessary technical skills and documentation, the necessary equipment for the measuring instruments and test sets in the homeland as well as for the calibration in mission.

In principle it is aimed to be able to carry out the calibration in own calibration facilities provided the calibration is technically and economically rectified. The measuring values recorded during calibration must be documented and be traceable to national standards.

For the calibration own technical regulations are published by the responsible project management and complemented or refined by the calibration laboratory with special calibration procedures if necessary.



Every measuring instrument and test set to be calibrated is grasped in a central database:

P/N, NATO Stocknumber, In-Service Support manager - on which technical basis the calibration of the measuring

instrument and test set occurs (e.g. standard) - which demands for the calibration are made (e.g. parameters,

specifications) - through whom the calibration and after which time expiry or

other signs to be grasped the recalibration has to occur.



Metrological confirmation



The project management for test measurement equipment has to consider and assess the calibration or measuring process with the aim of a metro-logical confirmation according to ISO 10012: it is checked, to what extent the measuring instrument and test set is suitable for the respective use case, the necessary regulations and documents for the respective measurement equipment and test set have to be provided and published, the necessary measures are provided for the supervision of the calibration as well as the calibration equipment.

The demand for the procurement of the necessary measuring instrument and test set are fixed due the metrological confirmation. These demands for the procurement are published in a data sheet and form the baseline for the necessary technical documentation for calibration of the test & measurement equipment. The holder of the measuring instrument and testing set will be informed by the data sheet basically any time of the measuring values and their tolerances checked during calibration.





Equipment of the calibration labs / calibration center of the German armed forces



To achieve a unified equipment of the calibration labs of the armed forces and to be able to carry out the calibration actually and efficiently, the test and measurement equipment is summarized into special functional groups (for example: functional group of multimetres, oscilloscopes, torque wrenches). On the baseline of the measurements and tolerances documented in data sheets of the test and measurement equipment summarized in the respective functional group the selection of suitable lab equipment for the calibration occurs.

Compared with U.S. the distances between military installations in Germany are relatively short. Therefor transportation of goods and products, materials is paid by the weight independent from the distance between the sender and receiver. As the test and measurement equipment from the troops has to be send via the existing transportation system in use to the tasked calibration laboratory for the calibration needed, the calibration labs of the German armed forces were integrated into one calibration center and were optimized on special functional groups. By summarizing calibration jobs of the same kind into one specified calibration laboratory, only test and measurement equipment agreed for this calibration lab can be calibrated. On this occasion, a reduction of necessary jobs were achieved with at the same time higher availability of needed jobs, and the possibility of further optimization and possible automation of the job.



Setting up standard procedures for calibration of test & measurement equipment for automation



The use of automated jobs assumes the knowledge of the necessary procedure steps of the calibration as well as the knowledge of the necessary and with the technical equipment in place achievable measuring inaccuracy. Covered to the agreed calibration a measuring uncertainty consideration takes place. For the respective functional group, pattern procedure instructions are defined for the calibration as well as the consideration of the measuring insecurity. The technical specifications of the used lab-standards and their insecurity contribution form the baseline.

The agreed specifications in the data sheet of the test & measurement equipment are compared to the technical specifications of the lab job to be able to ascertain, to what extent the calibration of the test & measurement equipment can be carried out with this lab job, in particular the relation between the item to be calibrated and the "theoretically" attainable measuring exactness of the lab job is obtained.

Beside the backup of the necessary technical equipment for the calibration of the test & measurement equipment the Advantage of this approach is the optimization of the lab job to the calibration needed, the inquiry of not sufficient measuring exactness as well as too high demands for the lab standards which are not claimed by the test & measurement equipment to be calibrated.



Gerät Bezeichnung Datenblatt-Nr.

Kalibrator Fluke 5520A Manual

Prüfling Gossen Metrawatt MA 4H Manual

Ux = UKal + δUKal + δUx + δUTherm δUx = 0.1 • δUSk

Ix = IKal + δIKal + δIx δIx = 0.1 • δISk



V. Conclusions



V. Conclusions

Besides, by the systematic construction oriented process of calibration places – the German armed forces call it “job modules” the calibration could be supported normative and be standardized in spite of the complexity of doing many different calibrations for similar equipment with different needs and the uncertainty of people involved. Though this reduces the variety of calibrations done by single labs and their engineers in the jobs, however, it raises the specialization degree by synergetic effects and decreases the processing time of a calibration. Together with a standardization of the measuring instrument park of the German armed forces – an efficiency increase could be achieved with concurrent control of the processes analog to ISO 10012.



Documents

German Armed Forces Test & Measurement Equipment CALIBRATION OF LARGE NUMBER OF TEST & MEASUREMENT EQUIPMENT