Regulatory Compliance and Increased Productivity

Don’t compromise between managing your risks, your quality and your productivity. Good Weighing Practice™ is a guideline that allows you to improve your whole measuring process. Regulations cover almost every aspect of the manufacturing process and a failure to meet these regulations can be expensive, both in terms of money and reputation.

Operating a weighing system in compliance with any current quality management system requires a good understanding of the regulations, of the parameters influencing the measurement accuracy and of the process requirements. METTLER TOLEDO proposes a straightforward five-step methodology combining all these relevant parameters to consistently achieve regulatory compliance and maintain top quality: Good Weighing Practice™ (GWP^®).

If quality used to be primarily a question of accuracy, it is now increasingly associated with the concept of risk evaluation and risk management. It is the daily preoccupation of quality managers in many different industries.

Experience put into straightforward weighing practice
Each application is unique. The regulations (ISO, GLP, GMP, GFSI, etc.) divulge nothing on the practical application of the requirements. METTLER TOLEDO has put decades of technical leadership and field experience into GWP® to provide every user with:

• Guaranteed quality
• Reduced costs
• Safe audits
• Peace of mind

Users receive a printed GWP^® recommendation describing:

• The appropriate scale satisfying accuracy requirements from smallest net quantity to be weighed to maximal load
• The documentation package requested by the applicable regulation
• All the required tests (calibration and user routine tests) and the frequency at which these shall be conducted
• The test weights to be used
• The standard operating procedures (SOP) for the routine tests

Five Steps to Good Weighing Practice™

STEP 1: Good Evaluation
Evaluation of the process requirements from a metrological perspective.

• Weighing range
• Smallest net weight
• Process tolerance
• Applicable regulations
• Need for safety margin

STEP 2: Good Selection
Selection of the scale to fulfill all the above requirements.

STEP 3: Good Installation
Documenting that the installation has taken place appropriately.
A comprehensive quality documentation contains evidence that unpacking, installation, set-up, configuration, calibration, adjustment and training have taken place and that the installed equipment fulfills the requirements it was selected for.

STEP 4: Good Calibration
A calibration will document the scale’s effective performance under the influence of environmental factors. Issuing a calibration certificate to the locally applicable regulations and thus documenting the performance of a scale at a regular interval is the task of a trained technician.

STEP 5: Good Operation
Establish a routine operating procedure and routine tests that will guarantee the quality criteria of the weighing process are fulfilled at all times

Learn more about Good Weighing Practice™, about evaluation of risks or about how to properly operate a scale by logging on to: www.mt.com/gwp.