Bringing the concept of measurement closer to international practice
At the policy communication conference on the Draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Measurement organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology on August 19 in Hanoi, Ms. Tran Thi Thuy Ha - Measurement Committee, National Standards Committee for Measurement and Quality (Ministry of Science and Technology) said that the draft Law amends many specialized concepts to better suit international practices.
According to Ms. Ha, this content group focuses on rewriting and supplementing the concepts in Article 3 of the Law on Measurement. The concepts are built according to the International Vocabulary for Measurement (VIM), thereby ensuring compatibility with international practices and documents of the International Bureau of Metrology (BIPM) and the International Organization for Standards and Metrology (OIML).
According to current regulations, measurement standards are understood as technical means used to express, maintain measurement units and make standards for comparison with other measurement means or measurement standards. The draft supplements the requirement that measurement standards must have values and "measurement uncertainty" attached, and separates "standard quality" into a separate concept.
The addition of "measurement uncertainty" is not just a change in wording. This is information related to the results of measurement activities themselves.
According to the draft, the concept of equivalence is also rewritten in the direction that equivalence results include quantity values and measurement uncertainty.
Simply put, the measurement result not only needs to indicate how much is measured, but also needs to show the degree of uncertainty associated with that result. The inclusion of this content in the concepts of the Law aims to create consistency with the approach being used in international measurement systems.
Standard quality" is separated into a separate concept
Another change presented by Ms. Ha is separating the standard substance from the concept of measurement standards.
The draft reserves Article 15 to specifically regulate the requirements for quality standards. Accordingly, quality standards must ensure uniformity, stability and attribute value in accordance with published or prescribed measurement technical requirements.
Notably, the attribute value of the standard substance must be confirmed along with the measured uncertainty of this attribute value. Confirmation is carried out through testing or comparison at the testing organization.
With standards directly used to test measuring instruments, the draft also proposes to change the management method. Instead of requiring certification as currently regulated, the amended content is switched to publication according to regulations.
This correction is placed in the overall standardization of concepts and technical requirements for measurement. According to the document Ms. Ha presented, the goal is to clarify specialized concepts, while ensuring compatibility with the international measurement terminology system.
The measurement results should also show the level of reliability.
The addition of "not guaranteed measurement" is also reflected in the regulations on conformity.
According to the draft, calibration is an activity performed under a specified condition to establish a relationship between the measurement standard and the corresponding indices of the calibrated object. The result must include the quantity value and the measurement uncertainty.
This is a difference from the expression in the current Law, when calibration is mainly described as the activity of determining and establishing a relationship between the measured value of the measurement standard, measuring instrument and the measured value of the quantity to be measured. The Draft clearly adds the component "unstable measurement" to the calibration result.
According to this approach, information about a measurement or standardized result does not just stop at a number. Determining and showing measurement uncertainty helps provide more information about the result, consistent with the presentation in an international measurement system.
Ms. Ha said that updating these concepts is part of the group of amended contents of the draft Law. This is also the basis for regulations on measurement standards, effigies and quality standards to be more unified throughout the legal system on measurement.
According to the presented documents, the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Measurement has 20 groups of amended and supplemented contents, focusing on groups of issues such as concepts, conditions for service business, digital transformation and management decentralization.
The noteworthy point of this amendment group is that the Law not only changes the management mechanism but also updates it right from the professional terminology platform. The inclusion of "not guaranteed measurement" into the concept of measurement standards and conformity results, while separating "standard quality", aims to make the concept system of measurement law more consistent with international practices.
