3. What about the role of accreditation?

Since calibration is a key stage in the metrological traceability of a measurement result, it's only natural that it should receive special attention. All over the world, organizations have taken on the task of ensuring that calibration service providers work to the highest standards.

In France, COFRAC (Comité français d'accréditation - French Accreditation Committee) is responsible, among other things, for carrying out this mission. To enable international trade (measurements must be comparable throughout the world), COFRAC is committed to a system of mutual recognition with its counterparts. At European level in particular, COFRAC is a signatory to ILAC's MRA (Mutual Recognition Arrangement), which inspired note 7 of VIM definition 2.41.

The technical conformity of a calibration is assessed on the basis of this score. When a laboratory...