OIML Seminar: "Stakes and priorities of legal
metrology for trade"
Monday 26 Oct
An OIML Seminar entitled "Stakes and priorities of
legal metrology for trade" will take place on Monday 26 October 2009
from 09:00 to 17:30 at the Whitesands Resort.
Confidence is a major issue for domestic and international
trade. Suppliers and buyers conclude a transaction based on a common agreement
on the goods, products or services that are sold and this calls for an
agreement on the quantity and quality of these goods, products or services.
All this is based on measurements which are necessarily
conducted by one party to the transaction - legal metrology aims to ensure
that the other party may have confidence in them.
The measurement facilities are very often automated so
that performing the measurements may be done by operators who are not
specialists. Therefore, confidence in the measurement results derives
principally from the ability of the equipment to deliver correct measurements
under variable measurement and environmental conditions, and from the
ability of this equipment to be insensitive to operator errors and to
tampering.
This is why many of these measurements fall under the
expanding scope of legal metrology, which aims to set up appropriate requirements
and controls on the equipment to ensure that the equipment shows the ability
mentioned above and that it will therefore provide appropriate confidence
in the measurement results.
Without such confidence, trade would be subject to multiple
measurements carried out at the initiative of each party to the transaction,
creating disputes due to differences in measurements. The additional cost
of such multiple measurements and of solving these disputes would considerably
affect the efficiency of trade and jeopardize the economy. Legal metrology
is therefore an essential tool in ensuring fair trade and for the efficiency
of an economy.
The OIML's mission is to develop the appropriate means
to respond to these needs, such as:
- drafting internationally agreed requirements on measuring
instruments,
- formulating methods for the evaluation of instruments,
- establishing methods and legal provisions recommended
for setting up a national system for the economy and its citizens,
- developing mutual confidence between countries, and
mutual acceptance of evaluation or measurement results obtained in different
countries, and
- providing the necessary tools that countries may use
to facilitate trade and to protect their own interests and those of
their stakeholders.
The aim of this Seminar is to present the needs of the
many stakeholders of legal metrology:
- professions concerned by measurements falling within
the scope of legal metrology, at domestic or international level (trade,
agriculture, food products, commodities, energy measurement, transport,
etc.),
- consumer associations,
- manufacturers of measuring instruments,
- public authorities (e.g. road safety, industrial safety,
environment, water resources management, etc.).
During the Seminar the various stakeholders will be invited
to give presentations of their needs and expectations; the Seminar will
conclude with a discussion of the priorities for the OIML in order to
address these needs.
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OIML
Seminar: "Stakes and priorities of legal metrology for trade"