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Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Calibration / Verification ... Is There Really a Difference?

Calibration and Verification are commonly used across many scientific disciplines and industries with varied yet similar meanings. We have found that although the terms are closely related, they are often mistakenly used interchangeably.

The true relationship is that calibration (the comparative measurement) leads to the completion of the verification. Verification is not possible without the preceding calibration. You must always first perform the calibration between the standard reference and the examined device to determine the difference between them. It is then appropriate to compare the observed difference/error with the allowable errors as stated by the device’s performance specification to complete the verification.

However, in practice, the verification is so closely related to the calibration that they are treated as two inseparable parts of the same process.