Environment don't matter

[dallanta]

    I have more years in PMEL than I care to think of, but recently I have moved out of that for a bit.  I was visiting a PMEL lab to turn in some equipment for calibration and saw a bunch of gauge block kits.  I commented that I guess they had to send those off for calibration because of the environment.
  The response I got kind of surprised me.  The guy there kind of grinned at me and said no, they calibrate them here.  He said the Army does not recognize extreme temperatures and environment as a factor in their calibration. oooooooooookay

[Hawaii596]

Huh!?!  Huh!?!  Wow.  I am NOOOOO dimensional person (not at all).  I trained in radar/navigations and communications, then went to the Navy version of PMEL school at Lowry AFB in 83 (which did not include dimensional).  And in a lab where I recently worked, because we didn't have proper environmental controls not to calibrate gage blocks, but just to use them, I created a detailed spreadsheet where you put in the certified (at 20 Deg C) value for the gage block (well, the deviation from nominal), enter the current temperature and using the standard coefficient for our blocks, it would give you a corrected value.

Huh!?!  Huh!?!  Wow (a second time).  To borrow a phrase from one of my favorite shows (Family Guy), "...this is worse than the time that I...[fill in the blank]"

[flew-da-coup]

    I have more years in PMEL than I care to think of, but recently I have moved out of that for a bit.  I was visiting a PMEL lab to turn in some equipment for calibration and saw a bunch of gauge block kits.  I commented that I guess they had to send those off for calibration because of the environment.
  The response I got kind of surprised me.  The guy there kind of grinned at me and said no, they calibrate them here.  He said the Army does not recognize extreme temperatures and environment as a factor in their calibration. oooooooooookay

What lab was this? Are they on another planet? Were you traveling through space and found an alternate universe.

I would love for an army tech to clear this one up for us and explain this.

[MRD]

Army PMEL here, all gauge blocks were sent to secondary reference labs like White Sands or Tobyhanna Army Depots.  They were calibrated in the temp/humidity controlled buildings within the buildings, I can't remember what they were called, and there was one at Permasans too. 

dallanta, finish the story, this isn't the nightly news, no reason for just sound bites....

[CalibratorJ]

Yet another Army tech here. I also happen to work at a partial Secondary Reference Lab where gage blocks will be cal'd.

I would LOVE to know what lab/cal team you were at dallanta. There are actually only a handful of Army labs WORLDWIDE that can do gage blocks and they are ALL maintained at constant temp/humidity and the blocks are stabilized before cal etc etc etc.

So please, where was this? Please name n shame, I would LOVE to know.

[CalLabSolutions]

There are a lot of labs out there that make good money doing absolutely nothing!  And there are a lot of TMDE owners out there that just want a sticker at the lowest possible price.

Environment doesn't matter if all you are going to do clean the blocks and put stickers on them.  And if they are a high speed / low drag operation, they will have a written procedure explaining exactly how the blocks are cleaned and a sticker affixed.

I have heard things and seen some things that would make your stomach twist in knots.  And because I am a business owner I can't just come out and say "ARE FRACKING STUPID!"

I am ranting here..
But I have never understood why companies, who do not want to spend money on calibration, don't just change all of their intervals to 4 years... Doing this they would spend 1/4 as much on calibration... And at least once every four years they would be getting tested correctly. 

I am sure one of you math whizzes out there could run the numbers and prove it is less risky to calibrate less often than sending the equipment to a lick'em stick'em shop where year after year it is never checked.

When I was at WSMR (years ago), they were having the same problem.  They wanted to cut TMDE support costs and they put me in charge of it.  So I read the regulations and discovered there were more options..  Because WSMR was an R&D activity (at least my organization was) we had some wiggle room.  There were previsions in the regulations that allowed us to set longer intervals on less critical instruments  and instrument that were used to give us a fussy warm feeling (display purposes only no measurements) could be designated as such and no longer calibrated.   All and all about 30% of our TMDE did not need to be calibrated regularly. 

Now that I am in the commercial world TMDE owners are allowed to set their own intervals on TMDE (based on their risk assessments).

So why do these companies send their equipment to a lab that are not testing their equipment correctly?  My guess is that it is just easier..

[Hippie]

It's all about dollars and cents. If you can get a hot stamp for 5 bucks why pay 10. It really burns my butt. I was taught better. The lack of integrity is appalling. Course I'm old school PMEL. However I see it every day. What ya gonna do. I do it right. PERIOD.

[CalibratorJ]

I agree that is about dollars and cents as well as common sense....


And again, I would LOVE to know what ARMY lab you were at dallanta. IMHO, if you can't and/or won't name the lab, then IMHO you have no business posting these types of comments:

    He said the Army does not recognize extreme temperatures and environment as a factor in their calibration.

Also, if you were speaking to a Production Control clerk, 9 out of 10 times the clerk has ZERO technical experience and does not even come from a calibration background..... The clerk may THINK they are done there, but in fact they are not and the clerk doesn't know because some of the larger operations have seperate shipping departments and unless you have some tech experience you wouldn't know what is done where......

*waits patiently for dallanta's reply as to where/what lab you were at*

[dallanta]

Sorry I left it all in the air.  The "lab" is in Afghanistan.  The tech that told me this I know is a very good one.  The contract for PMEL/TMDE was held by KBR.  They just recently lost the contract to Fluor.  I am just glad I did not have to ceritify this stuff, or not.  Not a joke, this is true.

[CalibratorJ]

Ok, that is a contract lab. Technically, I guess it is an "Army" lab, but not in the "normal" sense.

I also do not believe that they are a Secondary Reference lab or even have the capability to do Reference work. All of their Secondary stuff (gage blocks, etc) stuff should be going through them to Germany.

Contract or not, they still are governed by the Army's QA policies...

[MRD]

Dallanta can you clarify your two postings, in your first one you were visiting the "lab" and in the second you refer to a "tech that told me this." 

With the specifics of the Gauge blocks not calibrated in a temp humidity controlled environment being the central complaint about this labs proficiency there are other aspects that should be considered.  Primarily what procedure were they going to be calibrated in accordance to?  If the blocks were to be used as a door stop and needed to weigh 1 lb +/- 8 oz, then the procedure doesn't really need to address temp/humidity.

We have some large blocks we do in house for the guys setting up the CNC milling machines.  They don't need calibration to MFR specifications and they are labeled as such.

When I was in the Army procedures were generic and written to calibrate the same model throughout the Army no matter the application.  In the real world you often don't buy a tool because it does a 30 things and need all 30 parameters checked, you buy it because it does 5 things and the rest just sit there. 

If you know the application and your procedure and documentation states what's been calibrated to you can do pretty much whatever you want.  Keep in mind you may have to defend yourself to an auditor or even a judge for that matter.

[CalibratorJ]

Green,

No gage blocks are done at a true "T" level lab anymore, they are all done at Temp and Humidity controlled Secondary Reference labs. And the procedures have changed a LOT in the last decade. Most are model specific now. If is a general procedure, they are a lot more specific than AFTOs IMHO.

If, in the few rare cases, a T lab has the capability to do gage blocks, then it is because they not only have the equipment, but the controlled environment specified by the appropriate AR, TB, and/or USATA SOP. Not to mention they have to have a "Capability Waiver" stating they can do higher level work than they are authorized.

But hey, I am just a tech that has been working for the Army for 10+ years, what do I know?

And dallanta, if you are truly serious about the lab there saying they do calibrate gage blocks and wanting to find out the absolute truth, you could always go the official route and contact the USATA HQ at https://tmdehome.redstone.army.mil to find out the true capabilities of your theater support.

I, on the other hand, will do some snooping of my own  I'm also wondering if they are still using the same van that we left there some odd 7 years ago......

[In the know]

Yes they are. . . things are worse with the new contract!!

[CalibratorJ]

Well, rumor has it that the Army still has a government lab somewhere in country. Rumor has it, that is.

[Guppy]

OK  i do not know about the Army or Army contracts, especially in the war zone,  but as a phys/dim.  tech contractor for the AF all blocks are done either at a depot or AFMETCAL depending on the required accuracy.   No way can a GP labe certify gage blocks to anything worth using,  even using temp.  corrections