I have received an ISO certificate from a supplier without an accreditation mark. Does a website exist where I can check the validity of this registrar?
Cscramuzza has a good answer. Monitoring the process with external (to the machine) gages will satisfy the ISO 9K requirement. There are two rules of thumb I suggest: (1) How likely is it that NOT calibrating will result in non-conforming product? If there is a significant risk of non-conforming product if the equipment gage is not calibrated, then calibrate it. And the second point, taken from a Metrology point of view, (2) is the measurement qualitative or quantitative? If it is a quantitative measurement, then calibrate it. If it is a qualitative measurement (only used as a state indicator, reading makes no difference at all), then no need to calibrate.
I work for an ISO certified company and we have made a rule of thumb that we calibrate a gage if its reading result in a decision regarding the quality of our product. In other words we may calibrate it if its an important aspect of the process and a wrong reading would result in incorrect adjustments, which result in bad product, but for the most part, we rely on the the quality measurement gages to make all of our quality decisions on the in-process or finished products, rather than those on the equipment, since our processes do change and it doesn't matter how its set up, as long as we're producing good product. In a round about way, I saying that you have to decide how stable your process is and if its worth doing SPC the way its meant to be done in which case, calibrate your equipment gages, otherwise stick to the quality gages for calibration.
hershal 7/30/2002
One last point.......hopefully your calibration provider is accredited to ISO/IEC 17025......helps you to have confidence in their competence.
Hershal
hershal 7/30/2002
Cscramuzza has a good answer. Monitoring the process with external (to the machine) gages will satisfy the ISO 9K requirement. There are two rules of thumb I suggest: (1) How likely is it that NOT calibrating will result in non-conforming product? If there is a significant risk of non-conforming product if the equipment gage is not calibrated, then calibrate it. And the second point, taken from a Metrology point of view, (2) is the measurement qualitative or quantitative? If it is a quantitative measurement, then calibrate it. If it is a qualitative measurement (only used as a state indicator, reading makes no difference at all), then no need to calibrate.
Hope this helps.
Hershal
cscramuzza 7/30/2002
I work for an ISO certified company and we have made a rule of thumb that we calibrate a gage if its reading result in a decision regarding the quality of our product. In other words we may calibrate it if its an important aspect of the process and a wrong reading would result in incorrect adjustments, which result in bad product, but for the most part, we rely on the the quality measurement gages to make all of our quality decisions on the in-process or finished products, rather than those on the equipment, since our processes do change and it doesn't matter how its set up, as long as we're producing good product. In a round about way, I saying that you have to decide how stable your process is and if its worth doing SPC the way its meant to be done in which case, calibrate your equipment gages, otherwise stick to the quality gages for calibration.