22nd CIML Meeting — Minutes (EN, Bulletin)

The Committee :

Mr BIRKELAND introduced this item by stressing the importance for OIML of the question of mutual recognition of metrological controls and, more generally, of what was meant by international certification. The internationalization of the exchange of merchandise, goods and services had increased significantly in all fields, including that of metrology. At the same time, national metrological services had often seen their resources diminishing or stagnating at their present level, or at any rate not increasing as rapidly as the volume of work. A way of resolving some of the problems encountered at local level lay, no doubt, in the solution of the problems of international certification, thanks to better rationalization of activity.

Mr THULIN summarised the Bureau's activities since the last meeting of the Committee which were of interest to developing countries:

The Minutes were approved with the following amendments :

Mr BIRKELAND reminded the Committee of the accession of PORTUGAL as a Member State and of that of BARBADOS as a Corresponding Member.

Mr ATHANE reported that Venezuela had asked to be considered as no longer a Member State, because of her economic difficulties.

The Committee approved these two reports and instructed its President and the Director of the Bureau to submit them to the Eighth Conference.

Mr ATHANE reported that at the end of 1986 and the beginning of 1987 OIML had been in a difficult financial position because seventeen Member States had not paid their subscriptions for 1986, so that it had had to make extensive use of its reserve fund to meet its expenses and had had to restrict the latter as much as possible to the bare essentials. In the course of 1987 the position had improved, a large part of the arrears having been paid and also many States having paid their subscriptions for 1987 promptly.

The Committee :

M. PETIK drew the attention of the Committee to the final drafts of the programmes of work that the Bureau had presented, in a uniform format, based on the draft work programmes drawn up by the Secretariats in 1985 and approved by the Committee in 1986. Although it was not then possible to draw any final conclusions it could be said that, of 150 Reporting Secretariats, 40 were inactive (their work being either finished or not yet started). Of the 110 active Secretariats, three quarters were proceeding according to plan and a quarter had slipped behind. There would be a more detailed analysis at the beginning of 1988, using the annual reports that the Bureau would receive before the end of 1987.

Mr BIRKELAND reminded the Committee of the reasons which had led it to decide to introduce a planning system for the work of OIML, and to instruct the Presidential Council to prepare the system and to put it into effect. The second planning period, for the years 1989 to 1992, should by then be entering its planning phase, even if the results of the first period were far from being known in their entirety. Experience had shown that the problem of setting priority criteria, that is the importance to be attached to each work topic, had not been completely resolved, and that this question needed to be studied in depth before constructing the plan for the second period. For that purpose the Bureau had submitted proposals which stemmed from ideas and comments put forward by some Committee Members.

Mr BIRKELAND introduced the paper, "State of progress of the work of the Secretariats of OIML ", of which an updated edition had been distributed to all participants. The paper aroused no comment.

Mr ATHANE gave an account of the situation in which some of the Secretariats found themselves and with regard to which the Committee made the following decisions :

Mr BIRKELAND pointed out that the document Working Method of OIML Secretariats was now some years old and should therefore be well known and

Mr BIRKELAND introduced this item by stressing the importance for OIML of the question of mutual recognition of metrological controls and, more generally, of what was meant by international certification. The internationalization of the exchange of merchandise, goods and services had increased significantly in all fields, including that of metrology. At the same time, national metrological services had often seen their resources diminishing or stagnating at their present level, or at any rate not increasing as rapidly as the volume of work. A way of resolving some of the problems encountered at local level lay, no doubt, in the solution of the problems of international certification, thanks to better rationalization of activity.

Mr BIRCH detailed fully the preparations for the Eighth Conference, which had been invited by the Australian government to meet at Sydney in October 1988, a year which would also see the celebration of the Bicentenary of the European Settlement on the continent. Mr ATHANE added some administrative details.

Mr ATHANE submitted a preliminary draft agenda for the Conference which the Committee found generally acceptable.

Mr THULIN summarised the Bureau's activities since the last meeting of the Committee which were of interest to developing countries:

Mr EDGERLY reminded the Committee that the Presidential Council had given him the task of producing a proposal whose object would be to make official the publication by the Bureau of brochures which fall neither into the category of International Recommendations nor into that of International Documents. These brochures could come originally from the Bureau itself or from a Pilot Secretariat or Reporting Secretariat (and in the last case would have been approved by the International Working Group of the Secretariat), or from other sources. They would be examined by the Bureau, and the decision whether or not to publish them would be the Director's. These brochures could cover very different fields : information manuals for developing countries, compilations of existing Recommendations, reports, etc.

Mr THULIN spoke of the seminar on the measurement of large quantities of liquids, which the Bureau had organised at Arles, in the south of France, in April 1987, with the support of the French metrological authorities and, as regarded the visits and technical demonstrations, the help of French industrial enterprises. The seminar had been a great success; 63 people had taken part, coming from numerous Member States, from one Corresponding Member (Albania), and from one country which was not a member (Saudi Arabia). A detailed account of the proceedings had been published in the OIML Bulletin of September 1987.

The Committee noted a report, of which copies were distributed during the meeting, which described in broad terms the work of BIML since the preceding meeting of the Committee in April 1986.

a) Mr ATHANE spoke about cooperation between BIPM, IEC, ISO and BIML, in particular about the revision of the VIM and about the work in progress on the expression of uncertainties, for which the working group had met twice at BIML.

The Committee approved the report of the 21st CIML meeting with the following modifications: