Calibration of employee owned measurement equipment and gages

M

Mumus

Hi All,

I would like your oppinion on this...I am managing our company's calibration system and I have a question. I am in control of our measuring tools (mics, calipers, etc) but there are also tools (employee owned not company) which are not in our calibration system. Should we send those out to calibrate as well ? Or should we not allow employees to bring their own equipement to work ?

How did you handle this at your place ?

Any thought are welcomed and appreciated.

Thanks
M
 
D

Dean Frederickson

Re: Calibration of parts

The places I have worked have done it both ways. Some places find it less expensive to have the employees use thier own tools and the company pays for the calibration. The other places I have worked for buy the tools and calibrate the tools, the employees are not allowed to use thier own. Either way is O.K.
 

CarolX

Trusted Information Resource
Re: Calibration of employee owned equipment

Hi All,

I would like your oppinion on this...I am managing our company's calibration system and I have a question. I am in control of our measuring tools (mics, calipers, etc) but there are also tools (employee owned not company) which are not in our calibration system. Should we send those out to calibrate as well ? Or should we not allow employees to bring their own equipement to work ?

How did you handle this at your place ?

Any thought are welcomed and appreciated.

Thanks
M

Mumus,

I have retitled this thread to relfect your question. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you will find links to a number of threads on this subject.
 

errhine

Involved - Posts
Re: Calibration of employee owned equipment

We only allow certain tools to be personally owned equipment and these are controlled and calibrated just like company owned tools. If the tool wears out due to company use, we offer to split the purchase of a replacement with the employee.
 

Jerry Eldred

Forum Moderator
Super Moderator
My point has already been made quite correctly. But for the sake of "my two cents," In my wide range of industry exposure, it is fully acceptable either way. However, you should make a call as to which direction your company will go, and clearly cover it in the appropriate policy. AND.. make sure employees are aware.

If you go with no employee-owned instruments, make it a firm policy, and well communicated. If you go with allowing it, make a set of well communicated unambiguous guidelines to assure they are held equally accountable for having the instrments calibrated in accordance with your company policy.
 
D

Dave Dunn

If they are going to be used for any purpose that would normally trigger requirement of calibration, then they must be calibrated. In any case, whether they're for reference only or not, they need to be controlled in some way so that users will know what purposes they can and cannot be used for.
 
T

Ted Schmitt

When I started here, there where a "ton" of employee owned instruments...I didn´t find that to be "correct" (imagine if I asked the guy to bring his own CNC lathe from home too... :lmao:) .... so, we slowly went acquiring calipers to substitute the employee owned ones...

All in all, it really doesn´t matter if the employee brings his own and it is added to the organizations calibration program or the organization provides the instruments... IMO, it´s a question of supplying the equipment (calipers, machines, safety equipment, training and so on) so that the employee can produce what he´s being paid to do.
 
B

Bobh@pte

I allow my people to choose. If they keep and use their tools thay have to calibrate and sticker all of their tools. I put together books for my guys according to what tools they do have. I put the procedures in their book along with a recall schedule, they turn the data in and it is input into the company database.

In the end, it is a company decision to make.
 

David M McInerney

Registered Visitor
Hi All,

I would like your oppinion on this...I am managing our company's calibration system and I have a question. I am in control of our measuring tools (mics, calipers, etc) but there are also tools (employee owned not company) which are not in our calibration system. Should we send those out to calibrate as well ? Or should we not allow employees to bring their own equipement to work ?

How did you handle this at your place ?

Any thought are welcomed and appreciated.

Thanks
M

Is this ISO9001-2000 QMS? If yes, assuming these employee owned tools are responsible for approving product than it is no option to calibrate or not. you must include. As mentioned in prior posts the annual calibration that most companies do is totally a waste of time.
1) Obtain a certified traceable set of stds to utilize for calibration and track the status of these on a calibration record and locate them in an area accessible to all necessary personnel.

2) Train the personnel that are required to use measuring equipment to a simple "prior to use" calibration work instruction that ensures the measurement over the range of the instrument is accurate to a predetermined criteria. include in this WI a method to identify N/C equipment and removal from area if found. Document the training to this WI on training records and evaluate the effectiveness of the training periodically.


This will avoid the chance that a piece of measuring equipment is not damaged the day after it is calibrated and potentially used for 364 days to buyoff product before it is reevaluated at the annual calibration and found to be incorrect.

Also if the tools are calibrated "prior to use" as the std allows than you can avoid all the records, stickers, etc.


My two cents
Dave
 
B

Bobh@pte

"Also if the tools are calibrated "prior to use" as the std allows than you can avoid all the records, stickers, etc."

What standard?
 
Top Bottom