January is National Get Organized Month, So Let’s Calibrate!

It’s a new year full of new possibilities, so what better time to get organized, right?

January was designated Get Organized Month in 2005 by the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), an organization of over 4,000 organizing and productivity professionals that help businesses improve their organization and efficiency. The designation of the month is an annual reminder to look at the details of your business and make those tweaks that will make this year even better than the last.

While most of us think about the inner workings of business, if your business relies on weights and measurements it’s also a good time to think about the calibration of your scales and gauges.

Do you have a regular calibration and maintenance schedule for your measuring equipment?

While generally the OEM recommendations can help determine the right intervals for calibration, it really winds up being the responsibility of the operator because you must take into account the manner in which the scale or gauge is being used. For instance, a number of factors go in to determining the recalibration frequency of scales, like regulation requirements, contract requirements, extreme heat or cold, heavy regular usage, physically moving the scale and more.

In some areas of business, ISO standards can mandate periodic calibration, but if you don’t have a mandate make sure you set up a regular calibration scale based on the equipment itself, the environment and the amount of consistent usage. Whatever the size of your business, the accuracy of your equipment cannot be overemphasized…it can be as costly as failing to maintain mandated industry requirements!

There’s a great illustration of this from Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory (HASTAC) on https://www.hastac.org:

“If you sell 1000 lbs. on average of a product per day at a rate of $10 per lbs., this comes to a total trade value of $10,000. Let’s assume the scale is out of tolerance by 0.5%. If you do the math, this could amount to a discrepancy of $50 a day, $250 per week and $1000 in a month. However, shorter intervals between calibrations can save a lot of money and unnecessary hassles too.”

Take time this month to get organized and if you don’t have a regular calibration schedule or just aren’t sure what to do, contact Garber Metrology today and let us help you get the best from your equipment!