We recently had the third party audit to IATF 16949 and had been written up for the lab scope not indicating the test methods that is traceable to national standard. I understand the necessity and am trying to get this corrected, however I will need to improve our lab scope and separate one for mechanical measuring and one for calibration.
I was looking at some of the lab scopes for the ISO 17025 certified laboratories, and I noticed that the lab doing the mechanical measurements as their service (eg. metallurgy analysis) had references to ASTM standards as their test methods, but lab doing the calibration services (eg. micrometer, caliper, etc.) did not necessarily refer to any national standards and said "comparison to gage blocks" (and basically that's what we do internally, only that the gage blocks are calibrated externally by ISO 17025 certified lab periodically). One of the things that our auditor had mentioned was that I did not have reference to national standard calibrating the micrometer; therefore it is not traceable. So, in this case do I need to refer to ASME standards for calibration methods? I'd been having hard time finding ASTM standard for calibrating micrometers and calipers. Maybe I'm not looking enough or searching with wrong words.
Any thoughts and advise?
I was looking at some of the lab scopes for the ISO 17025 certified laboratories, and I noticed that the lab doing the mechanical measurements as their service (eg. metallurgy analysis) had references to ASTM standards as their test methods, but lab doing the calibration services (eg. micrometer, caliper, etc.) did not necessarily refer to any national standards and said "comparison to gage blocks" (and basically that's what we do internally, only that the gage blocks are calibrated externally by ISO 17025 certified lab periodically). One of the things that our auditor had mentioned was that I did not have reference to national standard calibrating the micrometer; therefore it is not traceable. So, in this case do I need to refer to ASME standards for calibration methods? I'd been having hard time finding ASTM standard for calibrating micrometers and calipers. Maybe I'm not looking enough or searching with wrong words.
Any thoughts and advise?