Congratulations to the Coastal Instruments team for the renewal of our accreditation to the ISO/IEC 17025-2005, AINSI Z540-1-1994 standard for the North Carolina facility. This renewal also included the expansion of our scope from 1000 slpm to 2500 slpm and the addition of field calibration capability.
Coastal Instruments, Inc. is proud to announce our capability to service the latest model MKS digital mass flow devices including the G-SERIES, I-SERIES, P-SERIES, and Legacy P-Series. This new service capability is a continuation of our on-going development programs that assure we can meet our customers’ mass flow controller service needs from the oldest obsolete models to the newest digital, device net/profibus protocol devices. Please see our product list for a full listing of the specific models that we service. We also carry a large inventory of the most popular models that can be completely refurbished, setup to your unique specifications, and shipped within days of your order. Got a question about what we can do, email us, or give us a call. We just got a new phone system and we like to use it.
All Coastal-US offices will be closed Monday, September 1 for the Labor Day holiday. As usual, if you have an emergency somebody will be on call for customer service.
This week we began the installation of a new telephone system in our NC office. Our current phone system was hastily installed after our fire and subsequent move into our new facility in 2011 (has it been that long already?) and it has given us some problems over the years. Hopefully the new system will prove to be more dependable and user friendly than the old one. It will probably be sometime next week before it goes online and we expect the transition to be a non-event to our customers.
Well, it looks like the phone system is back in order. Give us a call and try it out.
We are having some problems with our phone system in the NC office today (again). If you are having trouble getting your call to go through please keep trying, or email us at massflow@mfchelp.com.
Tim Williams, Tasha Williams, Brad Darby, and Bob Williams at the Semicon West show in San Francisco.
All Coastal-US offices will be closed Monday, May 26, 2104.
After the fire in our facility in July 2011 we spent the next several months rebuilding our calibration lab in a temporary facility and reactivating our ISO 17025 accreditation. Due to the extensive damage incurred on our primary standard system, and the critical need to restore our ability to provide accredited calibrations as soon as possible, we chose to focus on restoring the accreditation of our transfer and working standards first. The ISO 17025 accreditation of our transfer and working standards in our temporary facility was reactivated in April 2012.
During the following year and a half we designed and constructed a new permanent calibration facility, moved into the new facility, and then performed the actions required to restore the accreditation of the working and transfer standards for the calibration systems as installed in the new facility.
Two years after the fire, we finally had the time to work on our primary standard system. Over the last several months we have completely redesigned our primary standard system with new state of the art proximity sensors, timers, pressure and temperature transducers, and developed enhanced operating software to control and monitor the whole system. After months of debug and fine tuning the operation of the system we have produced the data required to restore our accreditation for the primary standard system. We are proud to announce that as of today, April 25, 2014, we have received accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025:2005, and ANSI/NCSL Z540-1-1994 from the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) to add our completely redesigned and enhanced primary standard system to our scope of accreditation.
A lot of work from a lot of people went into fully recovering from the fire of almost three years ago. This was the last step. Great job by all!
If your internal quality system specifies that you use an ISO 17025 accredited calibration laboratory for your mass flow controller calibration needs, you are probably assuming all calibration laboratories accredited to that specification have the same capabilities. Accreditation to the ISO 17025 specification results in the issuance of an accreditation certificate, and a scope of accreditation, which lists the specific parameters covered by the accreditation (ie, gas flow), the type equipment used to make the measurement (ie, Bell prover primary standard), the full range of values (ie, 1 sccm to 1,000,000 sccm), and the calculated uncertainty of that specific measurement (ie, .27% of reading). Be aware, there is a significant, unstated gray area in the issuance of that certificate.
When the accredited laboratory undergoes the audit process the auditor covers only the services and capabilities claimed by that laboratory. If the laboratory claims they only take flow data, then the audit covers only the process and equipment used in taking flow data. It does not cover any other service, like disassembly/reassembly, cleaning, reconfiguration (range or gas change), repair, or the adjustment/recalibration of the device. This means that they cannot (OK, should not) issue you a certificate of calibration certified to the ISO specification if they performed any of those services as part of the calibration process because those processes have not been audited and the lab has not demonstrated competency in meeting the requirements of the ISO standard.
How do you know this? You do not! The scope of accreditation assumes that any processes or services claimed as part of the calibration process are included in the audit and by definition meet the ISO 17025 standard, but it does not define any of those capabilities other than generation of flow data. At this point this becomes an honor system. A system that says “if I tell the auditor I am doing it, I have been audited, if I do not tell them then I do not need to be audited”. You could ask your vendor if they are certified to ISO 17025 for the “repair and adjustment” of your device (good luck on that answer), but the only way you could know for sure would be to see the actual audit report from the accrediting body, which I doubt you are going to do.
Coastal Instruments, Inc. has been audited and accredited to ISO/IEC-17025:2005 and ANSI/NCSL Z540-1-1994, for all the services that we perform…. period. That includes the cleaning, replacement of parts, repair, adjustment, reconfiguration, and recalibration of your device. That audit process includes the procurement system for spare parts, tools, and the software used for the repair and reconfiguration, the process for disassembly, cleaning and reassembly, and the adjustment of the device after the “as found” data has been taken. Unfortunately our scope of accreditation only says we can generate accredited data on the device, just like everybody else that only takes data on a device. If your calibration vendor is performing any of these services as part of the accredited calibration, they should be able to prove they have been audited to do so. If you are getting “as found” and “as left” data, and they are different, then the vendor is performing adjustments which should be part of the audit process. If you are being charged for the repair or reconfiguration of your device as part of the accredited calibration process, that process should have been part of the audit. If they were not, the calibration certificate you have been issued is questionable, and you are not getting the protection of using an accredited vendor that you assume you will get, and that you should get.
It has been very frustrating for Coastal Instruments to make the effort we have made to comply with the full intent of the standard and yet nothing in our scope reflects this, nor is there any component of our certificate or scope of accreditation that will differentiate Coastal Instruments from the labs that can only take a set of data. We have petitioned the accrediting body to address this issue, and while they do agree that this is a significant gap in the accreditation process, there appears to be no short term solution. In the meantime, all we can do is bring attention to this issue and make the offer that any customer who would like to see our full audit report, which defines every system covered in the audit, can do so by contacting our Quality Manager. Will your current ISO 17025 vendor make that offer?