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Certification and Recognitions

To further develop the harmonization and the free circulation of goods, the OIML has developed two Systems

The OIML Certificate System for Measuring Instruments, launched in 1991, is a voluntary system whereby Member States may appoint one or several Issuing Authorities to issue Certificates of Conformity (i.e. conformity with OIML Recommendations), associated with Test Reports. To be applicable within the System, a Recommendation must comprise three parts:

  • Requirements,
  • Test procedures, and
  • a Test report format

so that not only the requirements are harmonized, but also the technical aspects of conformity assessment. OIML Issuing Authorities are designated by CIML Members on the basis of their competence and their compliance with ISO Guide 65. Certificates issued by these Issuing Authorities are published on the OIML web site and in the quarterly Bulletin.

OIML Certificates attest that the tests are carried out by these Issuing Authorities in a harmonized way, and notably that their results are also presented in a comprehensive and harmonized way. They can be used by measuring instrument manufacturers as supporting evidence when applying for type approval in another country. The OIML Certificate System may also form a basis for bilateral or multilateral recognition agreements.

However, the System does not include an evaluation on the part of the OIML of the competence and impartiality of the Issuing Authority. It is fully voluntary and is based on the confidence that one country may have in another. This is why a further step was taken with the introduction and implementation of the OIML Mutual Acceptance Arrangement.

The OIML Mutual Acceptance Arrangement (MAA) is a system under which, for different categories of measuring instruments, a group of Participants sign a Declaration of Mutual Confidence (DoMC) by which they declare that they intend to accept and utilize the test results issued (with OIML Certificates) by Participants who have been adequately and accordingly evaluated.

The participants in a DoMC are certification bodies or national legal metrology authorities who will make use of these test results ("Utilizing Participants"), and among them, certification bodies whose testing and evaluation laboratories' competence and impartiality have been evaluated ("Issuing Participants").

Mutual confidence is built and maintained by applying the accreditation standard (ISO 17025) and the acceptability of Issuing Participants is examined by an ad-hoc OIML Committee, the Committee on Participation Review (CPR) established for each DoMC. The Issuing Participants undergo an evaluation in one of two ways: accreditation by an ILAC Full Member, or Peer Evaluation carried out by OIML teams in liaison with ILAC.

The objective of the MAA is to ensure confidence in measuring instrument type evaluations and facilitate the acceptance of instruments worldwide.