Calibrations logs

Calibration ensures the safety and reliability of instruments which you use to get the exact test results.  It is a form of quality assurance. To make sure that each test equipment performs as per requirements, it is essential to ensure it is periodically calibrated. Only if a test equipment is within its calibration period, it can give the guaranteed results as per stated requirements. If the calibration period exceeds, guaranteed outputs might not occur.

Un-calibrated tools should be pulled from product or engineering and kept in a segregated area until it is calibrated. The product has to be re-calibrated before the expiry of the calibration period to ensure that it may not have any problems.  If  there  is  un-calibrated  equipment,  it  should  be  kept  in  a contained area with an identification tag. Most of the companies calibrate the engineering and service equipments very rarely due to the high cost involved. Though calibration is an additional expense to the organisation, the consequences of not calibrating the equipment is far more costly

The following are some of the preconditions for calibration equipments:

• They have to be calibrated at regular intervals: The time span of the interval is determined by the engineering specifications.

• Each component of the equipment must have an identifiable control number and calibration date on the equipment.
• The equipment has to be protected against accidental adjustment.
• Re-adjusted as essential.
• Protected from break or dent.

When  using  test  equipment,  there  will  be  circumstances  when  the calibration of the test equipment is required and in some cases, calibration might  not  be necessary.  But, for development test,  production test  and qualification  test,  it  is crucial  to have the  calibrated  results  so  that  the outputs from the test equipment can be guaranteed. In these circumstances, it is essential to make sure that the test equipment has not exceeded its period of calibration.

Test equipment calibration is not just comparing test equipment with the one which is similar to verify whether the readings in both are the same. It needs a complete calibration procedure which will be available for sophisticated instruments. There should be special adjusters to calibrate the instrument and a test equipment to define the calibration procedure will also be defined.