USNO Y2k Bug Hits Headlines

Widely recognized as "America's timekeepers", the US Naval Observatory suffered the ignominy of, perhaps, the most embarrassing Y2k slip-up reported during the first days of this new century. Their website's millennium countdown clock seemed to be suffering the same over-indulgence that afflicted many of its countrymen during the period, as it precisely (but inaccurately) indicated that there were almost 700 thousand days until the year 2000 !

Time Bombshell : Leap Second Re-think

Global timekeeping gurus are considering proposals to discontinue "leap seconds" which are periodically, but irregularly, introduced into Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The arguments for scrapping the practice include the fact that many high-tech navigation systems can't handle leap seconds very well. GLONASS, the Russian equivalent of the American GPS, goes off-line for leap second adjustments. Also, problems can occur in interfacing between systems that handle leap seconds differently and human error - whether it's to be added or subtracted - is a real possibility. These days, of course, the ubiquitous Internet also figures in the justification in terms of network synchronization. The Network Time Protocol (NTP) uses the Internet to transfer time which was particularly on the mind of one corespondent to the USNO who opined:

"If leap seconds went away, the NTP community would worship the ground you walk on. Leap seconds introduce a manual discontinuity in the NTP time scale. It takes a while to propagate leap seconds through the hierarchy. They are a tremendous headache in the NTP world because they cannot be predicted. I think it is a very true statement that all GPS users would vote against continuing leap seconds, not just NTP users. Many telecommunications circuits use GPS or atomic clocks to keep cellular phones in operation, and leap seconds are a nuisance to them as well."

Those against the move, perhaps somewhat tongue-in-check, argue about the impact upon society if our civil timescales get progressively out of sync with timescales linked to our planet's physical characteristics. But the scale of this problem is only, perhaps, a minute over the next century; we certainly won't find it dark at mid-day at Greenwich (UK) !

Amongst the possible alternatives to scrapping leap seconds altogether would be to insert larger discontinuities less often, inserting at predefined times, simply using international atomic time (TAI) or, the more heretical suggestion of redefining the length of the second.

Feedback on the subject is currently being sought through a USNO/IERS survey but don't worry about any "surprise" decisions; before the relevant international bodies make any changes, full debate and publicity is promised.... So watch this space !

• USNO / IERS Survey

Since the early 1970's these have been used to adjust UTC so that it's consistent with the Earth's rotation as determined by astronomical observation (Mean Solar Time). UTC is the basis of every nation's civil time and is maintained using a weighted-average of the performance of hundreds of atomic clocks around the world. The US Naval Observatory provides further information about leap seconds.

• USNO Explains Leap Seconds

ISO/IEC17025 Published.... Finally !

Hurry, hurry, hurry... they're selling like hot cakes !
It's taken several years in the making but, at last, the eagerly anticipated replacement to ISO/IEC Guide 25:1990 has now been published. This new 26-page standard, entitled General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories, is available directly from ISO or national document distribution companies.

Far more extensive than the now obsolete Guide 25, 17025 incorporates the quality management criteria of the 1994 versions of ISO9001/2 as they apply to laboratories. Which is ironic, of course, because this standard is being significantly revised and should be published later this year.

• ISO

Metric Only Delayed Again
...while Europe Split on SI Units ?...(maybe !)

Two measurement reporting practices will be adopted in the European Community if publications on the official Europa website are to be believed.

The Official Journal of the European Communities L34 Volume 43 dated 9 February 2000 reports on the mandatory legislation "Directive 1999/103/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 January 2000 amending Council Directive 80/181/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to units of measurement".

The English language version of the Directive demands that the kilo prefix symbol shall become "K" and the hecto prefix become "H". Until now those symbols have been reserved for the exclusive use of Kelvin (temperature) and Henry (inductance). Apparently, the French and Greek concur with this practice according to their versions of the Directive. Those three allies are in the minority though; Germany, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Spain, Holland and Portugal will continue to use the traditional "k" and "h" SI multiplier symbols.

• The suspect English language version of the Directive

A spokesman denied that this will lead to any greater confusion in the marketplace, observing "We're striving for a federal Europe and the value of diversity must, therefore, be upheld."

European standardization at its best !

Meanwhile, on a more serious note, the Directive confirms that products labeled in non-metric and metric units (so-called dual labeling using "supplementary indications in non-legal units") will continue to be authorized for sale in the Community for a further, though undefined,  period. An earlier extension to the metric-only deadline established in Directive 80/181/EEC, which prohibits use of English (Imperial) units, expired at the end of last year. Vive la difference, as they say in France.

More Metric Mayhem
...or When is a Quarter-pound not a Quarterpounder ?
...or Do you want fries with that ?

Following adoption of the European Union's metrication law in January, stories regularly appear in British newspapers that highlight, possibly, the unforeseen impact of the legislation on British culture, as well as the above conundrum.

Required to enforce the law demanding loose food to be sold using only metric units, trading standards officials in the north of England refused to bend the regulations for a museum's candy shop... even though the Beamish Museum is a "living" recreation of the way people lived at the turn of the last century (circa 1900). Managers were ordered to cease selling such local favorites as black bullets and cinder toffee by the traditional quarter-pound in favor of grams. The argument that this would be ridiculous in a replica of an early twentieth-century tuck shop was rejected. But maybe the museum's proposition would have had been more favorably received if they charged 1900 prices ?

Given the British Weights and Measures Association's stance on the matter, their director gave a predictably supportive quote: "It's a pity public money is being squandered to wreck the unique heritage of our nation."

Meanwhile, fast-food giant McDonald's is keeping its quarter-pounder on the menu despite the metric laws. Officially, the legislation means it must now be sold as a "113-grammer", but their spokesman rejected the suggestion of a new name appearing on the menu. "Quarterpounder is a registered trademark name", he asserted, "not an indication of weight."

• Beamish Museum
• British Weights and Measures Association

Free Uncertainty Aid

The European co-operation for Accreditation has released a new document on calibration uncertainty (EA-4/02). It offers step-by-step guidance and is supported by a good number of examples. Refer to our Uncertainty Resources page for the opportunity to view / download.

• Uncertainty Resources
• European co-operation for Accreditation

GPS SA Free

In an unexpected move that shook many users of the US Defense Department's Global Positioning System, President Clinton announced on May 1^st that "selective availability" would be turned-off at midnight that very day. SA is, essentially, interference added to the transmitted signals whose effect is to reduce receivers' location-finding ability.

More information about the President's decision and GPS in general is available from the Interagency GPS Executive Board.

Other than for navigational purposes, GPS is also used for timekeeping and standard frequency dissemination and these applications are also expected to benefit from SA removal. Several of Agilent's calibration centers around the world use GPS-disciplined oscillators to monitor the performance of their own atomic frequency standards -- we'll keep you posted as to our experiences of the new, noise-free GPS !

• Interagency GPS Executive Board

World Metrology Day
...the award for the Best Kept Secret

A decision was taken during the twenty-first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) held last October in Paris, France to annually mark May 20^th as World Metrology Day.

The date was chosen because it marks the signing of the Metre Convention in 1875. This Treaty was initially signed by 17 nations with the aim of providing a formal basis for international agreement on units of measurement based on the metric system. There are now 48 Member States.

It's interesting to note that the CGPM chose to make World Metrology Day a "fixed feast" falling on the same date each year (like Christmas Day). This contrasts with the less precise World Standards Day which ISO deems to be a "movable feast" (like Easter) and, indeed, the exact date of which can vary from country to country.

This year, World Standards Day will be celebrated on October 18th in the USA.

The UK NPL have compiled a calendar of worldwide events to celebrate World Metrology Day.

• NPL WMD Compilation

ISO9000:2000 Moves to Final Stage

In May, ISO announced that its membership had returned a positive vote on the Draft International Standard version of the ISO9000 revisions in development. The comments received with the votes were subsequently considered by Technical Committee 176 at their meeting last month in Japan. Agreement was reached on revisions to the text and that the document should go forward to the final stage in the process -- publication of a Final Draft International Standard.

The FDIS versions of ISO9000, ISO9001 and ISO9004 are expected to be published in September. The organization's national member institutes are allowed a two-month period to cast their votes which, assuming three-quarters of votes are in favor, should mean that the updated standard will be released by the end of the year.

• ISO News

Unaccredited Calibration Acceptable

The British accreditation agency (UKAS) recently held a series of seminars to explain how its adoption of ISO17025 will affect accredited laboratories. At the London meeting, useful clarifications were gained by the assembled laboratory representatives but one discussion point in particular was, potentially, very significant. During its development stages people will have scrutinized its clauses but many may not have fully appreciated the impact of paragraph 5-6-2-1-1 so here's the scoop...

UKAS confirmed that they will not expand upon 17025's criteria; several of their current accreditation documents will be SCRAPPED and the remainder revised as GUIDANCE only. Not really much of a surprise until attention was drawn to the effect of 5-6-2-1-1 which is that UKAS will no longer require traceability to be obtained from another accredited laboratory. Assessors will accept non-accredited calibration certificates provided that sufficient evidence is available to confirm that the potential supplier complies with the standard and that the (UKAS) auditee has the critical technical competence to make such an assessment.

The question of whether the other accreditation agencies have the same attitude to the standard (or will maintain additional criteria) was raised but not definitively answered. However, attention was drawn to the fact that some customer standards (e.g. the automotive industry's QS9000) stipulate accredited suppliers must be used and that some countries or industry sectors impose legal obligations for accredited certificates. Taking-up the opportunity presented by this radical policy change could open up the whole, proverbial "can of worms".

The presentation material is available from the UKAS website, including notes from the most useful "Question & Answers" (Q&A) sessions.

• UKAS ISO17025 Seminar Material

Time Lord Honored

The cult television show Doctor Who has a new challenger to play the role of the Universe's principal time lord.... Agilent Labs atomic clock pioneer Len Cutler (pictured right) was recently named Inventor of the Week by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This prestigious honor was bestowed under the Lemelson-MIT Awards Program, part of the Lemelson National Program in Invention, Innovation and Creativity. The program's mission is to inspire a new generation of American scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs by celebrating living role models in these fields.

The first atomic clock was invented in 1948. In the early 1960s, HP set out to design a cesium clock for commercial purposes. In 1964, Cutler and his colleague Al Bagley succeeded, inventing the 5060A Cesium Beam Clock. This was the first all-solid-state cesium-beam chronometer, whose frequency standard was soon adopted by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology and other scientific centers around the world. Cutler's 1964 clock coordinated international time to within a microsecond, whereas previous efforts had pared accuracy down to only a millisecond. Cutler continued refining both the design and the constituent parts of cesium clocks, as well as researching in quantum mechanics. His most recent triumph, in 1991, was the 5071A: at twice the accuracy of its predecessor, it remains the world's most accurate commercial clock, losing about one second every 1.6 million years. 5071A's also account for 82% of the data relied on to keep the International Atomic Time Standard.

• MIT Inventor of the Week
• Len Cutler : Time Lord
• Doctor Who (BBC OnLine)

World Standards Day

Initially celebrated thirty years ago, the original objective of World Standards Day was to recognize the birth of ISO (the International Organization for Standardization). ISO's inaugural meeting took place in London, United Kingdom on 14^th October 1946. Now, the aim is to raise awareness of the importance of global standardization to the world economy and to pay tribute to the thousands of volunteers who contribute their expertise in committees and work-groups.

October 14^th is the formal date of commemoration but, unlike World Metrology Day, the celebration of World Standards Day occurs on different dates in various countries. The USA has denoted October 18^th this year but there will be party balloons all week as many special events around the day are planned. Contact your own country's national standards body or metrology institute for details of how you can join in the fun locally !

• World Standards Day at ISO
• World Standards Day at ANSI (USA)

At Last ! Accreditation Gets a Global "Thumbs-Up"

It's taken a quarter of a century but the first pan-world mutual recognition agreement for accredited calibration and testing has been brokered by the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation at its recent conference in Washington DC.

An insistence that products be retested at importation to check conformance with local standards and regulations, was identified in the mid-1970's by the World Trade Organization as a widespread technical barrier to trade that adds delay and cost to making goods available to a wider market.

Coming into force at the end of next January, the new ILAC Arrangement was signed by representatives of accreditation agencies in twenty-eight countries and means that the results of tests performed by an accredited laboratory in one country will be accepted by the signatories of all the other countries. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that the product's end-users are bound to accept a foreign calibration certificate, for example.

Former recognition agreements only existed between some individual agencies or multilaterally through regional bodies such as APLAC, NACLA and EA. These organizations will continue to play a crucial role in maintaining confidence in the accreditation agencies from their region.

Representatives from the following economies made the commitment:
Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, People's Republic of China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong China, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Chinese Taipei, United Kingdom, United States of America, Vietnam.

• ILAC

So what's "Accreditation" anyway?
Accredited laboratories are independently assessed to meet established international criteria concerning their quality system and technical competence in the particular field of measurement.

No Recount Needed in ISO9000 Vote !

In marked contrast to the shenanigans that afflicted this month's US presidential election, ISO has announced a landslide victory that has paved the way for publication of ISO9000:2000 by mid-December.

Of the 63 member bodies that participated in the two-month ballot, 94% voted to approve the new ISO9000 standard. However, an undisclosed country was seriously out-of-step with international opinion concerning the new 9001 and 9004 documents as an amazing 62 positive votes were cast. More surprising still is the revelation that the single negative vote came from a member who had actually participated in the standard's development !

Despite the overwhelming result, the versions to be published next month will be slightly different to the Final Draft International Standards (FDIS). Minor editorial modifications have been made to improve clarity of the texts that will be published as ISO9001:2000 and ISO9004:2000. In the case of ISO9000:2000, more substantial modifications have been made to the definitions of auditing terms which is due to the continuing evolution of the other standard in the ISO 9000 "core series", ISO 19011, Guidelines on Quality and/or Environmental Management Systems Auditing.

• ISO