Is Your Scale Appropriate for Your Process Needs?

During the course of a measuring instrument's working life, its uses may take some strange turns. For example, it may be that scales bought for a very specific weighing process are later “recycled” for a different application. This practice very frequently leads to major compliance issues that, if not detected, will cause severe quality problems.

Weighing is a critical process step that, if conducted improperly, will cause significant deviations in quality as well as non-compliance issues. How do you measure compliance of your weighing procedures and how can you be sure that your processes will consistently produce goods in the quality you require?

The key question you should be able to answer is:

• Is the weighing instrument I am using appropriate to fulfill my process requirements?

This brings you to further points:

• Are my scales and balances accurate enough for the required tolerances?
• Is the documentation complete? Is its quality audit-proof?
• Do I have an overview of the status of my weighing equipment?
• Am I doing too few or too many checks (routine tests) on my instruments?

To answer all these questions, as a first step, it is necessary to define precisely and comprehensively the process requirements the instrument has to fulfill. In a second step, performance parameters for the weighing instruments (e.g., the scale’s repeatability) must be established and real data must be collected to monitor the effective performance of the instrument in the actual production environment. Has the comparison between the required versus the effective performance highlighted any gaps? Well, then corrective measures must be taken immediately.

Good Weighing Practice™ and GWP^® Verification
GWP^® Verification is a new service product introduced by METTLER TOLEDO that allows you to discover in a systematic way actual misalignment between your required and your actual weighing data for each of your weighing instruments. With the expertise of METTLER TOLEDO, GWP^® Verification advises you on the effective and immediate actions necessary to bring the process under control again. Additionally, GWP^® Verification offers you recurring verification of your scales on a yearly basis.

No unpleasant surprises anymore, but continuous and consistent quality and compliance to your process requirements. With acquired confidence and security, GWP^® Verification helps you to lead your business to successful audits and reduced quality costs.

Concretely, GWP Verification helps you to translate your process requirements into parameters to measure the performance of the weighing system, such as the accuracy required, the documentation to be produced, the routine tests to be performed, the test weights to use for the successful running of routine tests, and finally the test tolerances to be verified. Each weighing instrument is then tested to verify compliance with expectations. Finally, a minimum weight certificate and an individual report for each scale as well as a GWP summary report with comprehensive data and findings are issued. These documents are the basis for discussion in order to answer the key question: Is the weighing instrument I am using appropriate to fulfill my process requirements?