The Office for Product Safety and Standards announced that it no longer plans to provide commercial Conformity Assessment Body (CAB) services for metrology products under the NMO (National Measurement Office) brand and that it will be stepping back from the market.
Statement from OPS&S
NMO Technical Services
Product certification, quality management system certification, pre-assessment, and standards calibration.
Contents
Changes to Conformity Assessment Body Services
Changes in the broader test house and conformity assessment landscape have made it necessary for the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) to consider the way it operates its statutory and commercial metrology services, in particular its role as a Conformity Assessment Body (CAB) for metrology products.
OPSS will be ending its provision of commercial Conformity Assessment Body (CAB) services under the NMO brand. This will be a managed exit, ensuring alternative provisions for businesses are in place before stepping back from the market.
OPSS will continue to uphold its statutory metrology services and its place as an expert leader in legal metrology. Ceasing our CAB commercial services will enable us to focus more on our key areas, increasing our support for local government and UK businesses, both nationally and internationally.
Manufacturers can draw on our specialised conformity assessment services to enable them to place regulated weighing and measuring instruments on the market. These include items as diverse as beer glasses, fuel dispensers, precision balances, railway weighbridges, supermarket scales, taximeters and water meters.
The Measuring Instruments Regulations 2016 (as amended) and the Non-automatic Weighing Instruments (NAWI) Regulations 2016 (as amended) supply the legal framework for conformity assessment within the UK.
Outside the UK, recommendations for specific weighing and measuring instruments are produced by the International Organisation for Legal Metrology (OIML).
Our client services
NMO Technical Services – part of OPSS – offers two main types of conformity assessment:
Product certification, sometimes called type examination, involves the rigorous assessment of instruments at the design stage to ensure they comply with the regulations
Quality management system certification is the approval of your processes for producing an instrument or verifying it following its repair or modification
We also provide:
Pre-assessment, for those unsure whether their product or quality management system will satisfy certification requirements
Standards calibration for businesses and local authorities
Standard terms and conditions for sale of goods and services (PDF, 101KB, 4 pages)
NMO is a non-profit organisation and operates on a full cost-recovery basis.
Our accreditations
Our accreditations are external endorsements of our work. NMO is:
an Approved Body in Great Britain and a Notified Body in Northern Ireland in relation to the Measuring Instruments Regulations 2016 (as amended) and Non-Automatic Weighing Instruments Regulations 2016 (as amended), authorised to provide conformity assessment
an Issuing Authority for the certification of instruments under the OIML Certification System
a Certification Body for ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Systems and Management Systems for self-verifiers under section 11A of the Weights and Measures Act 1985
UKAS accreditation
NMO’s calibration, testing, product certification and Quality Management System certification services are accredited by the UK Accreditation Service (UKAS). The scope of NMO’s accredited services is specified in schedules of accreditation that can be found by searching for ‘NMO’ on the UKAS website.
Calibration – UKAS reference number 0205
Testing – UKAS reference number 0004
Quality management system certification – UKAS reference number 0135
Product certification – UKAS reference number 0135
We are also responsible for national type approval and verification of certain instruments under the Weights and Measures Act 1985.
Our facilities
The equipment in the laboratories at our Teddington site is fully traceable to national standards, operated in accordance with ISO/IEC 17025:2017, and available for research or pre-assessment testing.
We liaise closely with the legal metrology team in OPSS, whose guidance on the Weights and Measures Act 1985 and related matters will be relevant to many of our existing and potential customers. This extends to training and consultancy.
Certificates issued by NMO
Measuring Instruments Regulations 2016 (S.I. 2016 No 1153)
Non-Automatic Weighing Instruments (NAWI) Regulations 2016 (S.I. 2016 No. 1152)