DAkkS, PTB and Inmetro Exchange views on Digitalisation of QI

On 11 July, representatives of the German Accreditation Body (Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle - DAkkS), the National Metrology Institute of Germany (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt - PTB), and Brazil’s National Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology (Inmetro) held an exchange. They discussed current developments in digital solutions to increase efficiency within the national quality infrastructure (QI). Topics such as digital certificates, the digital accreditation symbol and digital calibration certificates were addressed during the meeting. Furthermore, the meeting provided an overview of digital solutions in accreditation.

QI goes digital

As part of the QI-Digital Initiative, PTB and DakkS are working on the development and use of digital calibration certificates (DCC) with a digital accreditation symbol. The DCC is a machine-readable, tamper-proof and verifiable certificate. It plays a major role in ensuring that production processes and their quality assurance can be automated in the future. This increases  efficiency and reduces costs in the process flow.

The initiative has focused on sectoral pilot projects to implement this approach. These include reliable hydrogen filling stations, artificial intelligence in medicine and additive manufacturing in SMEs. In the future, the digital accreditation symbol may also be of great importance for the secure implementation of the digital product passport and the battery passport. It helps to identify counterfeits more easily and thus protect against tampering.

Digital QI in the future

The meeting provided an opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience on digital solutions in QI in Germany and Brazil. This allows both sides to benefit from the experience gained and explore innovative solutions. These solutions aim to achieve international interoperability of nationally digitised QI solutions in the future.