Why Metrology is important

Metrology is the science of measurement and it underpins manufacturing technologies. If you can’t measure, you can’t manufacture.

Metrology is fundamentally important to the UK’s manufacturing industry and each year £622bn worth of goods are sold on the basis of the measurement of their quality according to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Metrology is especially important in high-value manufacturing and the UK must remain at the forefront of metrology capability if it is to differentiate itself from low-cost overseas competition.

Precision is paramount and metrology is a key element of product verification for established high-value manufacturing sectors such as bio-engineering, optics and the aerospace industry. In emerging sectors, such as additive manufacture, new metrology techniques are required to enable more economical processes which are capable of greater accuracy and throughout.

Improvements in metrology practice and capability, for instance the development of metrology technology embedded in the production process rather than post production inspection, will have a dramatic impact on verification costs and productivity by reducing defect/scrap rates and eliminating time consuming and costly additional processes.

“Product verification activities account for between 10% and 20% of the cost of finished products”

NPL

“Over 60% of British Standards involve measurement or testing”

UK Measurement Strategy 2017

A survey of measurement in industry was carried out by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL).

This examined the use of measurement throughout the manufacturing lifecycle and found that:

75%