What OIML is
The International Organization of Legal Metrology (OIML) is an intergovernmental organization established in 1955, headquartered in Paris, France. Its 60+ member states and 60+ corresponding members collaborate to develop model regulations, called International Recommendations, for measuring instruments used in legal metrology. These recommendations form the basis for national legal metrology regulations worldwide.
OIML International Recommendations cover a wide range of measuring instruments: weighing instruments, gas and water meters, taximeters, material measures, dimension-measuring instruments, and many more. Each Recommendation defines requirements that measuring instruments must meet, test procedures to verify compliance, and test report forms to document results.
Traditionally, International Recommendations are published as PDF documents. They define requirements, test procedures, and report formats that must be manually interpreted and applied. The SMART programme changes this by making the Recommendation itself functional, a living digital artifact that can be directly used by software applications.
The SMART Programme
SMART stands for Standards that are Machine-Actionable, Readable and Transferrable. It is OIML’s programme to modernize how International Recommendations are authored, published, and consumed.
In the SMART model, an International Recommendation is no longer just a document, it is a structured digital package containing:
- Machine-readable requirements with explicit acceptance criteria, applicability filters, and parameterized by instrument classification dimensions.
- Conformance test procedures linked to requirements via explicit dependency chains, every test traces back to the requirement it verifies.
- Calculation-powered test report forms with embedded calculation engines, table lookups, numeric expressions, and pass/fail logic that auto-calculate field values.
- Terminology and ontology, defined terms, cross-reference systems, and an OWL-based semantic layer enabling interoperability across Recommendations.
The platform it runs on
OIML SMART and CNML are powered by the Primmel SMART platform, the modelling language, runtime machinery, and certificate PKI beneath the program. OIML SMART is the first program built on it; the platform itself is documented at primmel.org.
What the program itself comprises, the executable Recommendations, the Studio, the OIML-CS platform, the SMART instruments and their simulated twins, and the CNML certificate, is mapped from the home page and the program page. The whole system, repositories, data flow, and live gate numbers, is mapped on the architecture page.
Relationship to IEC-ISO SMART
OIML SMART is an independent digitalization framework, developed in parallel to the IEC-ISO SMART programme. Both share the goal of making standards machine-actionable, but address different domains: IEC-ISO SMART focuses on electrotechnical and industrial standards, while OIML SMART focuses on legal metrology, the regulation of measuring instruments used in trade, health, safety, and the environment.
Where overlapping features exist, equivalence is noted. OIML SMART does not depend on IEC-ISO SMART Core, but the data models and identifier systems are designed to be compatible where applicable.
The OIML-CS Connection
The OIML Certification System (OIML-CS) is the framework through which OIML type examination certificates and associated type evaluation reports are issued, registered, and used. SMART International Recommendations enable the OIML-CS to operate digitally, from application submission through test reporting to certificate issuance.
With SMART Recommendations, the entire certification workflow, applications, test reports, type evaluations, and certificates, becomes a structured, machine-actionable pipeline. This reduces manual data entry, eliminates transcription errors, and enables automated verification of compliance.
Read the OIML-CS overview for details.