World Metrology Day 2012 Seminar

The World Metrology Day on the 20th May each year has marked the anniversary of the signing of the Metre Convention since 1875. The Hong Kong Council for Testing and Certification (HKCTC), the Standards and Calibration Laboratory of the Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC/SCL), and the Vocational Training Council were joined by Government Laboratory (GL) and the Hong Kong Accreditation Service (HKAS) jointly held the seminar on 24 May 2012. Metrology is the science of measurement and it has application in every facet of daily life.

Since I had joined the Chinese Quality Forum in Taiwan, Ms. Minda Chiang (Secretary of Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ)) attended the seminar. I would like to summarized the seminar through Minda's information below.

In the beginning, Mr. KS Chiang (Head of ITC/SCL) gave a welcoming Remarks.

Ir. Dr. Lawrence Chan (Deputy Executive Director and Academic Director (Engineering), VTC) gave an opening remarks.

Presentation of souvenirs and group photo

The first speaker was Mr. Dennis WK Lee (Senior Electronics Engineer, ITC/SCL) and his topic entitled "The Socioeconomic Impacts of Metrology".

Metrology is fundamental to the production and delivery of high quality goods and services. Then Mr. Lee briefed Meter Convention which had 17 countries signatory originally. It aims to reduce technical barriers to trade (TBT).

Mr. Lee mentioned a sound measurement system in Hong Kong.

According to the basic law (No. 139), HKSAR has own scientific and technical standards.

Finally, Mr. Lee introduced different reference standard in SCL such as volt, resistance, length, thermodynamic temperature, mass and time.

The second speaker was Dr. CS Mok (Acting Chief Chemist, Food Safety and Quality Group, GL) and his presentation was "Metrology in Chemistry -- The need for Hong Kong".

Dr. Mok introduced different application of chemical measurement such as Pharmaceuticals, Foods, Forensic examination, etc.

Dr. Mok briefed the roadmap of GL to be a reference laboratory.

Finally, Dr. Mok summarized the proficiency tests which had organized by GL since 1987.

The third speaker was Mr. MY Wong (Honorary Chairman, Hong Kong Electronics & Technologies Association) and his presentation title was "Experience Sharing on Using Metrology in Business".

Mr. Aaron YK Yan (Senior Electronics Engineer, ITC/SCL) was the forth speaker and his topic named "Evaluation of Measurement Uncertainty - Present and Future Trend".

Mr. Yan briefed the uncertainty measurement from the past "Error (Systematic and Random)" to GUM (1993) "Type A and Type B uncertainty".

Apart from the GUM fundamental document (First edition in 1993, 2nd print in 1995 and 3rd print in 2008), there were some JCGM100 series document as GUM supplements below.

Mr. Yim Chi-Keung (Acting Department Head, Department of Engineering, VTC) with Mr. Aaron YK Yan (ITC/SCL) and Mr. Dennis WK Lee (ITC/SCL) presented the topic "What's in a certificate of calibration?" They discussed how calibration certificate fulfilled HOKLAS report requirement.

Mr. KW Chen (Senior Accreditation Officer, HKAS) was the last speaker and his topic entitled "Role of Accreditation in Metrology".

Mr. Chen said relationship of measurement result with definition of relevant measurement unit was measurement traceability. Then he showed the global traceability diagram and summarized that accreditation assured the competence of an accredited laboratory through confirming that its measurement were traceable.

Q&A Session

Reference:
HKCTC - http://www.hkctc.gov.hk/en/about.html
HKAS - http://www.itc.gov.hk/en/quality/hkas/about.htm
SCL - http://www.itc.gov.hk/en/quality/scl/about.htm
GL - http://www.govtlab.gov.hk/english/home.htm