GREETINGS FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF APMP

Dr. Hidetaka Imai, NRLM

Congratulations on your success in crossing the bridge from the 20th century to 21st century. I really hope that you are enjoying the life of the new century. We made great progress in the last few years of the previous century in the field of measurement science. The main target of the last century was to establish the general rules for the mutual recognition of national measurement standards under the Metre Convention. I believe that our recent objective in the new century is the construction of reliable national and international measurement traceability systems based on the reliable results of key international comparisons, and their effective dissemination all over the world.

Needless to say, measurement science provides the fundamental tools and technology for establishing a prosperous and safe society for us. However, the reliability of the international traceability system has not been precisely reviewed from the viewpoint of uncertainty evaluation. In the earlier stage of measurement standards, the target was to establish simple definitions of base units and disseminate them. Recent progress of science, industry and society requires more reliable and accurate measurement standards and traceability chains.

Recent rapid progress of science and technology requires a wide variety of measurement standards from base units to derived and industrial units. Another requirement in the field of measurement standards is sharing the roles of international organizations from global to regional levels. Five of 18 CIPM members and representatives from all six existing regional metrology organizations under the umbrella of the Metre Convention (APMP, COOMET, EUROMET, MENAMET, SADCMET, and SIM) participated in the 16th General Assembly of the APMP held in November 2000 in Thailand and earnestly discussed issues from a global viewpoint. This exemplifies the above-mentioned importance of liaison between international organizations and the role of the Joint Committee of the Regional Metrology Organizations and the BIPM (JCRB).

There are three important international organizations concerned with measurement science: the CIPM/BIPM for the Metre Convention, OIML for legal metrology and ILAC for laboratory accreditation. ILAC has close contact with ISO/CASCO. These three organizations are now publishing or editing the following documents related to mutual recognition arrangements:

• Mutual recognition of national measurement standards and of calibration and measurement certificates issued by national metrology institutes (CIPM),
• Mutual acceptance agreement on OIML pattern approval evaluation (OIML), and
• Consideration on entering into mutual recognition agreements (ISO).

Other objectives for the global measurement standards are the maintenance of human health and safety as well as environmental protection. These require establishment of chemical, biological and clinical measurement standards and their traceability systems. At the beginning of our new century, I would like to concentrate on establishing the following three items for the first step in the field of measurement science:

• Global consensus for the reliability of national measurement standards (equivalence of national standards),
• Construction of reliable international traceability systems in wide fields, and
• Dissemination of the BIPM database of key comparisons and calibration measurement capability.

The final information in my address is the news from Japan. An independent agency named the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) is to be established in April 2001 by amalgamating 15 national institutes of the former AIST and a training institute for metrologists. This means that all the staff of NRLM and standard divisions of ETL and NIMC will be combined in one research unit. I believe this evolution fits the global tendency in the new century.