Calibration, Verification or Conformance ?

When discussing calibration requirements with a potential supplier it's obviously important to understand what's being offered. Other articles in this section should help you to establish your requirements and distinguish the differences between available services. But one of the variations has, sometimes, even confused calibration laboratories and quality auditor. It's a matter of the difference between calibration, verification and even conformance.

Similar to the often confused specification terms accuracy and precision, a myth became "established wisdom" that calibration and verification are differentiated on the basis of quality or integrity.

• Specification terminology

Popular opinion being that verification is a quick-check of performance perhaps made without any real traceability, whereas calibration provides genuine assurance that the product really meets its specification. In fact, the US national standard ANSI/NCSL-Z540 defines "verification" as being calibration and evaluation of conformity against a specification. This definition originated with the now obsolete ISO/IEC Guide 25 but neither its replacement (ISO/IEC 17025) or the International Vocabulary of Measurement (VIM) currently have it or any alternative. The only relevant international standard that includes terminology covering the process of both calibrating and evaluating a measuring instrument's performance against established criteria is ISO10012 which uses the rather cumbersome term "metrological confirmation".

Calibration is simply the process of comparing the unknown with a reference standard and reporting the results. For example:
Applied= 1.30V, Indicated= 1.26V (or Error= -0.04V)
Calibration may include adjustment to correct any deviation from the value of the standard.

Verification, as it relates to calibration, is the comparison of the results against a specification, usually the manufacturer's published performance figures for the product. (e.g. Error= -0.04V, Spec= ±0.03V, "FAIL"). Some cal labs include a spec status statement on their Certificate of Calibration. (i.e. the item did/did not comply with a particular spec).

Where no judgment is made about compliance, or correction has not been made to minimize error, it has been suggested that Certificate of Measurement would be a more descriptive title to aid recognition of the service actually performed. Some suppliers also use Certificate of Verification where no measurements are involved in the performance testing (such as for certain datacomm/protocol analyzers), rather than Certificate of Functional Test as this latter term is often perceived as simply being brief, informal checks as might be performed following a repair (often termed "operational verification").

Verification can also relate to a similar evaluation process carried out by the equipment user/owner where the calibration data are compared to allowances made in the user's uncertainty budget (e.g. for drift/stability between cals) or other criteria such as a regulation or standard peculiar to the user's own test application.

Verification is not intermediate self-checking between calibrations. Such checks are better termed confidence checks, which may also be part of a Statistical Process Control regime. The results of confidence checks may be used to redefine when a "proper" calibration is required or may prompt modification of the item's working spec as assigned by the user.

But what about conformance, especially regarding the meaning of a Certificate of Conformance ? Typically available when an instrument is purchased, it is now  generally recognized that such a document has little value as an assurance of product performance. Of course, the manufacturer expects that the product conforms to its spec but, in this sense, the document simply affirms that the customer's purchase order/contract requirement has been duly fulfilled.