If you are a consultant in 17025 and laboratories and/or calibration and would like to advertise your availability, please use this thread to post anything you would like to promote your services. I suggest a link to a web site and/or a brief profile - some basic information.

My basic expectation if you do this is that you be a regular, active participant in the forum and that you are helping others here. I will delete any one-shot Nellies who come, post their advertisement and are not active in helping others.

NOTE: Your post count must exceed 100 posts to post in this thread.

This is not an advertisement, nor a statement of intent... But it is a question that comes to mind.

In the back of my mind, I'v considered going into some level of calibration consulting. I'm what you might call a "Jack of All Trades, Ace of None." My background is basically:

-PMEL School
-10 Years in USN
-25+ Total Years in Calibration including:
-About 5 of those years in Metrology and Quality Engineering
-Started two labs
-Worked in third party consulting on-site calibrations as supervisor for 3 years
-Worked for multiple "brand name" Fortune 100 companies either running labs, as lead tech and as engineer
-3 years manufacturing engineering
-MIL-STD Soldering/ESD Instructor
-Thorough tech writing (policies & procedures) background
-ISO9000 Lead Auditor Course (1 week)
-About 5 years MIL-STD-45662 and ANSI/NCSL Z540 Auditing Experience (as peripheral duty in lab)


Problem is, although in terms of credit hours and many Navy tech schools, I have the equivalent of 6 years of technical schools, I don't have a set of certifications.

Question is, if I were to consider wanting to do consulting work somehow in calibration with my background (some time down the road), what level of consulting could I legitimately do? And what further certifications should I consider getting to make myself marketable in that capacity?

I've considered general calibration consulting (technical, procedure writing, and setting up lab environments). But I don't believe I quite have the set of background to market as something such as an ISO17025 consultant.

How wide open is that field? And what further background should someone look at to that end?

Any inputs from the experts appreciated. For any who know and/or work with me, this is not a disguised job hunt. I'm considering this a little further down the road.

Jerry,

Since this is 'down the road', by that time the Certified Cal-Type Person thing should be up and running, and that should suffice for bare-minimum qualifications, although having the ASQ CQT, CQE, and CQA Certifications would certainly look really nice. Your PMEL school is impressive to anyone that actually knows calibration, since Associates degrees with a specialization in Metrology are just firing up, and I don't know of many places that offer it (I know of one, I heard about another starting one up). What also may help is to become a member of every Association that you can afford.

I am actually in the same boat as you, PMEL school, 17 years on the bench/in the office.

As far as ISO17025 consulting goes, I've seen a lot of consultants advertise 17025, but they couldn't develop an uncertainty budget, devise a check standard system, run through NCSL RP-1, etc. It seems to me that it is much easier to learn how to work through a quality system than it is to learn the science of Metrology. You are way ahead of the game, and from what I've read from your posts, I wouldn't hesitate to send folks your way (for a small finders fee of course) ;) . At least you know when to ask questions. I had a quality system consultant that used to take me out to lunch and pick my brain for an hour, and I didn't mind, because the lunch was always good.

Ryan

Ryan,

RE: Your Comment...

>having the ASQ CQT, CQE, and CQA Certifications would certainly look really nice.

Why was I afraid subconsciously someone would hit on those. There are actually people here in my company qualified, and who teach the CQE course. Seems like I'd better get that one done. I'll probably add the CQA as well. I had the good fortune (after the lab I ran back east for the same company) to get transferred to another of their major sites. They didn't have a lab to put me in. But a fairly high up person in the company (a Fortune 100 V.P.) personally interviewed and liked me. And so they threw me in way over my head. I was doing international quality systems and subcontractor quality management for very large contracts. They sent me overseas, and I spent a month being trained one-on-one by factory experts there. Then a few weeks after I returned from that lifetime experience in Asia, they put me back in the metrology world. So I've had some fortunate exposures to very high level quality systems. With those under my belt, and if I put on my personal training agenda to get the CQE/CQA, and maybe the CQT as well, those should help.

Another item on my plate is to attend the 2PCP Auditor Course in Michigan.

Anyway, I value those inputs. I will push those items up in my long term development to-do list.

Jerry,

I know exactly what you mean. Those certifications mean little to nothing versus your experience, but they mean everything when you are advertising yourself to future clients. I am hoping that the Certified Metrologist program will be more useful in a daily basis rather than a huge expense so that you can put some initials by your name.

Marketing is definitely not my forté...

Ryan

Jerry,

The ASQ certification that you may find most useful, if you want to include Metrology in your endeavor, is the CCT (Certified Calibration Technician).

Hershal