The Industrial Technology Institute (ITI) will be one of the state sector institutions that will receive assistance from a UNIDO project for upgrading the national metrology infrastructure in Sri Lanka, says a press release. The project is a part of the UNIDO ‘integrated industrial support programme’ for Sri Lanka on the component quality, standardization and metrology. This component of the UNIDO project has the main objective of strengthening the quality standardization and metrology capabilities in the country, with particular emphasis on certification of quality and environmental management systems and development of accredited chemical, microbiology and metrology laboratories.

With respect to the upgrade of the facilities, a fully sophisticated airconditioning system at a cost of US$ 100,000 will be installed to achieve the required temperature and humidity conditions to acceptable international levels. Equipment to the value of US$ 180,000 will also be received. Some of the equipment that has been received so far include two analytical balances, a precision balance, two stirred liquid baths, a resistance bridge, a portable infrared thermometer, a multi-product calibrator and a temperature controlled fluidized bath. Two officers of the laboratory are presently obtaining training at the National Physical Laboratory CSIRO, Australia in the areas of mass metrology and thermometry. With respect to international expert inputs, A. Vellingiri, has already assisted the laboratory on two occasions.

At present the country does not have a single internationally accredited calibration laboratory and due to this reason many industrial establishments servicing international clients have to send their test and measuring equipment to overseas calibration laboratories to meet the quality system requirements of their clients. Describing the background that led to the project, the release said that as a first step of the UNIDO project, Dr. Lalith Goonatilake, the team leader of the programme for Sri Lanka recommended that an assessment of the present status of metrology institutional infrastructure in the country be made with the main objective of taking stock of the equipment and facilities available so as to make recommendations towards improving the situation. For this activity, a national metrology expert Dr. G. M. S. de Silva who has held senior responsibilities relating to metrology in Sri Lanka and abroad and who has also worked as an international consultant was recruited and on his recommendations, UNIDO decided to strengthen the ITI metrology laboratory. The upgrading of the equipment and the capabilities of the staff of the ITI working in this area was a necessity due to a rapid escalation of the demand for metrology services in the country. This escalation is mainly due to the fact that calibration of measuring and testing equipment is essential for manufacturing and service organizations seeking ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 certification as well as for testing laboratories seeking ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation.

The metrology and instrumentation division of the ITI at present provides calibration and measurement services to a large number of industries and test laboratories in the areas of electricity, temperature, pressure and dimension. As the first step of this project, UNIDO will upgrade the facilities in the mass and thermometry laboratories of the ITI to obtain international accreditation. Assistance is also being received by way of training of officers and international expert inputs.

With this assistance that ITI will receive from UNIDO, the ITI metrology laboratory will soon be upgraded to international status and will be in a position to provide accredited metrology services to both industry as well as to other testing laboratories.