If you’re in an industry where you use measuring devices in various processes and systems, calibration, verification and validation are all essential to your success. While these terms are often confused with one another, they each have distinct meanings and purposes. All three of these processes are often needed to ensure your systems are safe and your final products meet compliance and accuracy standards.
Find out more about the difference between verification, calibration and validation below.
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Calibration refers to the process of comparing the accuracy of an instrument’s measurements to a known standard. These known measurements are called calibration standards, with these standards helping a technician adjust an instrument’s accuracy to deliver reliable measurements again. Any calibration standard a technician uses should be traceable, meaning the standard’s value can be traced back to a national standard, such as those set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Calibration is required whenever a device starts to produce inaccurate measurements or results. Typically, companies will have their equipment on a calibration schedule to ensure accuracy never drifts too much and affects key processes.
Instrument calibration applies to any company using measuring devices, such as those in the defense, medical, aerospace, pharmaceutical and automotive industries. Since all of these industries rely on measuring devices for various processes, they must receive accurate measurements to ensure product quality and safety.
If your company employs measuring devices and equipment, calibration is essential to ensure you receive accurate measurements. By regularly calibrating their equipment, companies can receive various benefits. Some of these calibration advantages include longer equipment life, greater safety, better compliance and more profitability.
Learn more about these benefits below:
Companies that offer calibration services must be ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited and use NIST traceable calibration standards. NIST traceable standards help technicians know they’ve adjusted equipment appropriately so it will deliver accurate results. The ISO/IEC 17025:2017 provides a set of standards for labs to follow to show they’re competent at performing various laboratory activities. Laboratories with this accreditation show a recognized accrediting body has inspected their labs. With this accreditation, a lab has proven they can properly calibrate specific types of devices.
Verification is a procedure made to help companies ensure their processes or equipment are working the way they were originally intended to. In this procedure, a company will use some sort of measuring device to see if a piece of equipment is operating correctly. It can also refer to a procedure designed to check an entire process to ensure this process meets its stated operating specifications.
Keep in mind, the verification process doesn’t involve any corrective actions. Rather, it’s simply a check to ensure equipment or processes produce results with errors within an application’s maximum permissible error, otherwise known as its tolerance. One main difference between calibration and verification is that verification doesn’t have technicians make any adjustments. This procedure also doesn’t usually have technicians checking its results versus any NIST standards. Verification simply helps companies confirm their instruments and systems are performing correctly.
Verification typically takes place after calibration is completed. Whether you’re calibrating all of the measuring units in a particular process or only calibrating a specific piece of equipment, verification is essential to ensuring the calibration was performed successfully. Companies also often use verification before calibration to help them see what needs calibration in a particular system.
Like calibration, verification relates to companies that utilize measurement devices in various processes. It can also apply to calibration companies so they can verify they’ve performed their calibration services correctly. Alongside companies performing calibration services, companies that sell measuring devices may use verification to ensure they’ve manufactured a measuring instrument correctly, providing an excellent product to their customers.
Since verification helps companies see if an instrument is working correctly, it comes with a few advantages, including:
The ISO/IEC 17025:2017 lays out a few standards labs to follow when using measuring devices. For example, these standards require that labs verify their methods and their equipment has evidence of verification to show they meet specified requirements. Any company with a lab environment must know and follow the various ISO 17025 standards to maintain their accreditation and show their customers they can handle various tasks competently.
Another applicable standard to verification is ISO/IEC 17029. This standard provides general requirements for verification bodies, encouraging consistent and competent verification processes from companies that provide the service.
Validation is a process designed to ensure different parts of a system function well together to help generate the needed outcomes. After a system’s components go through calibration and verification, validation is required to ensure all these components work together in a system to produce the right outcome.
The difference between calibration and validation comes down to calibration focusing on an instrument’s accuracy back to a known standard, while validation is geared toward making sure a system meets its stated functional intent. Since validation and verification are often confused, it’s important to note that verification checks if a process has the right operation while validation focuses on the system having the right output.
Validation is often needed when a company needs to show a regulating body or customer that a system functions in line with requirements or intent. When a company performs validation, they’ll be checking if the various components of a system function together to generate an intended outcome. Validation often occurs after calibration and verification services are performed.
Validation applies to a whole host of industries and companies using measuring instruments in their systems. Since this process ensures a system produces the desired outcome, it’s essential to companies wanting to achieve high product quality. You can also see regulatory bodies using validation to ensure a company’s systems’ outcomes meet various regulations.
Validation provides companies with several benefits that make it a crucial part of any system relying on measurement devices. Review some of the top advantages of validation below:
Like verification, validation is mandated by the ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 17025:2017. These standards make it so companies can prove their measurement results’ validity and give regulatory bodies proof of consistency. ISO standards also apply to the validation of methods to ensure everything in a system is working appropriately. As with verification, ISO/IEC 17029 also applies to validation, offering requirements for validation bodies.
At MicronPA, we regularly perform calibration, verification and validation at our state-of-the-art laboratories. Since all of these different processes serve vital roles in confirming a production system is performing optimally, we perform all three to give our customers the best service possible. By using all three of these procedures, we can see if our calibration services were effective, a process or piece of equipment is operating correctly and a system is creating the right outcomes.
Since we’re ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited and ISO 9001 certified, we ensure any instruments we calibrate don’t run into compliance issues. As you now know, these standards don’t just apply to calibration, so we also perform verification and validation. Combining all three of these processes ensures we adhere to compliance standards and maintain our accreditation and certification.
Many of our clients come from different industries, such as the defense, medical, automotive, pharmaceutical and aerospace industries. All of these industries require accuracy to complete various processes and ensure safety. For example, pharmaceutical equipment must be as accurate as possible to ensure products, such as prescription drugs, are safe for patients. Due to this need for safety, we perform verification, validation and calibration services, making it so our customers can be confident their protected from potential safety threats.
Since our team at MicronPA are experts at equipment calibration, we can handle various services for your needs and make the process easy. While you can send your instruments and devices to our lab, we can also come directly to your facilities for on-site services. We also regularly provide instrument pickup and delivery. We ensure quality by offering NIST-traceable laboratory services and taking the time to understand our customers’ needs before we get to work.
If you’re ready for calibration, verification and validation, take a moment to review our many services. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or want to partner with us.
NAICS: 541380, 811219
SIC: 8734
EIN: 23-292 5057 (S-Corp)
Cage Code: 1YT83
D&B: 04-887-0732
Size: Small Business
For Profit, Woman-Owned & Minority-Owned Business
