Newsletter - May 2010

"The NMISA kicked off the new financial year in April with projects being planned to bring the organisation more in line with the Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP2) of the dti.”

As an organisation, there is a lot of excitement as FIFA 2010 will highlight the role of Measurement in Sport and further enhance the image of South Africa and NMISA’s image internationally .

Further preparations have started for the design of new buildings for the NMISA, mentioned in the IPAP2 document. Although the timeline for the project is at least 5 years, early design is
essential in costing the proposed new facility.

As always, the NMISA embarked on a number of interesting calibration work impacting a range of industries during the period, the highlights of which are summarised in this newly designed newsletter.

The South African Quality Awards are a highlight that will feature annually, so watch that space.

Regards,
The NMISA

Soccer Fever at NMISA

20 May is World Metrology Day. The international theme for this year is: .
‘Metrology - measurements in Science and Technology - a bridge to innovation”

With soccer fever running high in South Africa (and Africa), the NMISA will be reaching out to the community in a soccer related manner.

The NMISA program includes an outreach to schools to promote metrology as a career, and a poster has been designed to highlight the role of metrology in a successful soccer game. The poster can be requested from the NMISA.

Email clourens@nmisa.org to obtain your copy

Regional and International News

Metrology underpins all trade. As the leading metrology institute in Africa, the
NMISA plays a major role in both SADC and Africa metrology development.

In the system of international metrology, numerous activities take place on a regional basis.

South Africa participates regionally under AFRIMETS, the Inter-Africa Metrology System, and currently holds the chair for AFRIMETS.

The Joint Committee of the Regional Metrology Organisations and the BIPM (JCRB) meet twice yearly, to
discuss activities and quality

systems in support of calibration and measurement capabilities.

This is a crucial part of the
international mutual recognition (CIPM-MRA) arrangement for the international acceptance of calibration certificates and measurements by. Dr Wynand Louw and Mr Donald Masuku from NMISA formed part of the four representatives
from AFRIMETS at the recent
JCRB meeting held in Paris, France from 17-19 March 2010, where Dr Louw presented an update on activities in Africa.

Two big highlights were Kenya
becoming a full member of the
BIPM, and Ghana becoming an associate member of the General conference on Weights and Measures (CGMP).

AFRIMETS now has three full
members of the BIPM (Egypt,
Kenya and South Africa) and two associate members of the CGPM (Ghana and Tunisia). The JCRB commended AFRIMETS for the significant progress made since its formation and welcomed the new AFRIMETS members to the BIPM and CGPM respectively.

These additions will improve
AFRIMETS participation in the
BIPM and international system of metrology. Additional information on the AFRIMETS activities is available on www.afrimets.org

SADC SQAM Meetings

The standards, quality, accreditation and metrology matters of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), are coordinated through an annual SADC SQAM meeting, which took place in Mbabane Swaziland from 22-27 March 2010.

NMISA was represented by Dr Wynand Louw and the SADCMET Secretariat staff, headed
by the Regional Coordinator Mr Donald Masuku.

This year’s technical workshop,which was also open to the public, was appropriately themed “The Role of SQAM towards enhancing Food Security and Consumer Protection” in view of the upcoming World Cup
soccer tournament to be held in South Africa in 2010.

Five papers were presented at the work shop by internationally renowned experts and all of them demonstrated the role of SQAM in facilitating in trade and enhancingfood security thereby ensuring consumer protection.

The meetings of the seven SADC
SQAM structures (SADCMET, SADCSTAN, SADCMEL, SADCA, SADCTBTSC and SADCTRLC) centred on advancing issues
suppor t ive of the regional integration agenda with the highlight on the SADC EU project
which ends in November this year.

National Quality Awards

Many South African enterprises have risen to the challenge of competing on a global scale and are successfully exporting goods and services around the world, using various methods to improve the quality of their products.

The dti has recently launched the South African Quality Awards to recognise and reward these
initiatives. The awards recognise enterprises that excel in quality improvement and that promote and raise awareness about the need for quality assurance, quality management and the different methods to achieve such quality standards. It furthermore aims at encouraging individuals to continue their involvement in South African quality efforts.

Award	Recipient
Best Enterprise Award (SMME)	Medicine in Need SA
Best Enterprise Award (Large Enterprise)	Fine Chemicals Corporation
Best Quality Product Award (Large Enterprise)	Low’s Creek Treated Timbers (Pty) Ltd
Best Quality Service Award (SMME)	Deltamune (Pty) Ltd.
Best Quality Service Award (Large Enterprise)	Gauteng Department of Agriculture
Best Quality Exporter Award (Large Enterprise)	Avlock International (Pty) Ltd.
Individual Quality Champion Award	Lucas Moloi (from Junto Consulting)
	The NMISA would like to congratulate all the winners

Deputy President of SA gets more informed about NMISA’s laser project

Deputy President Kgalema Mothlanthe paid a working visit to Tunisia in early April. The purpose of this visit was to assess progress achieved in the various areas where SA and Tunisia co-operate.

In line with the scientific and technological cooperation between the two countries, His Excellency also visited the African Laser Centre (ALC), where he was updated on the laser research project that NMISA is conducting in collaboration with the ALC.

With the increased use of lasers in a variety of applications, and optical fibres becoming a preferred transport media for the telecommunication industry, optical frequency measurements
are becoming increasingly important for calibration for length of optical fibres, and the properties of these fibres. For some of the required measurements to characterise light transport in optical fibre cables, suitable measurement methods are not yet fully developed.

The NMISA’s research project on a new optical frequency standard for time and dimension has just concluded the first phase of a project on laser light in fibre optical cables with a research group in Tunisia through additional support from the African Laser Centre.

One of the critical components of light in a fibre optical cable is the exact knowledge regarding the orientation of the so-called fast and slow axes of the fibre in experiment, and this is a central challenge in doing correct modelling that correspond to the experiment.

The collaborative research project with the Ecole Supérieure des Communications de Tunis (Sup'Com) from Tunisia led to a new method to measure the output light from the fibre in two different ways (the socalled far and near fields) and correlate that with (electromagnetic) models of the electric fields (essentially the light distribution), that will contribute to the optimisation of fibre optical cables as transport media for laser light.

Clearing Hazy Skies

Vehicle emissions are one of the main causes of the brown haze that often hangs over our cities. International and national regulations require that automotive manufactures test their vehicles’ emissions.
For these tests, certified gas reference materials of specific composition and appropriate levels are required.

Recently the Gas Metrology Laboratory
at the NMISA assisted one of the local gas manufacturers with the re-certification of calibration gases needed for the automotive emissions testing. The measurement traceability of the gas manufacturer was based on secondary reference materials imported from the mother company overseas, and the accuracy that it could provide was therefore not sufficient to meet the customer’s
needs.

The NMISA is in the process of developing its own primary nitrogen dioxide-in-nitrogen gas reference material, and was able to provide certified calibration gases to the testing laboratory at a higher level of accuracy than the 2% relative required.

During the past two years the laboratory took up several opportunities to improve the level of accuracy at which it can provide measurement traceability for automotive emissions monitoring. Of significance is the laboratory’s
participation at the end of 2009 in apreparative comparison for automotive emission gas standards (EURAMET 1113), where the participants had to prepare the comparison samples in order to test their preparative capabilities.

In January 2010, the laboratory also submitted results for the first CCQM key comparison for nitrogen dioxide (NO2)-in-nitrogen at the 10 μmol/mol level. Nitrogen dioxide emissions from vehicles are the number one cause of the brown haze due to the reactions with ozone in the atmosphere.

The suite of primary gas reference materials that the NMISA prepare can be supplied either as binary standards or as part of multi-component standards.

By supplying these directly to the local gas manufacturers, the cost and delivery delays of imported gases can be reduced while offering a higher accuracy resulting in improved service to their customers.

This initiative will also improve the accuracies for the ambient air monitoring networks, as well as for the test centres for automotive emissions, who purchase their calibration gases from the gas manufacturers.

Extending the range for relative humidity

Measurements of relative humidity are important in many industries such as paper production, pharmaceuticals and food, particularly during storage and transport.

Accurate measurements are required in heated and refrigerated environments; therefore hygrometers must often be calibrated at temperatures significantly above and below 20 °C.

In order to meet local industry needs by extending the temperature range over which NMISA can offer such calibrations, the NMISA has commissioned a new humidity generator.

The humidity generator was evaluated with a bilateral comparison of relative humidity measurement capabilities from 5 °C to 55 °C with the Finnish NMI between August 2008 and June 2009. Differences between the laboratory results were monitored and further investigated
during follow-up measurements in February 2010. commission this standard humidity generator built.

These results will allow the NMISA to submit Calibration and Measurement Capabilities (CMCs) for relative humidity measurements to the international database (KCDB) and hence allow for the international acceptance of such measurements performed locally.

Test & Measurement Conference 2010
	The Test & Measurement Conference will be held from 7 to 11 Nov 2010 at the Champagne Sports Resort Central Drakensberg. The theme for 2010 is : Measurements in Sport, Health & Safety - Is there a connection? Visit the NLA website on www.nla.org.za for additional information on the Conference and to enter your paper or abstract for consideration.

New Employees

2010 kicked off with a number of employees joining the NMISA.

IT	IT	Marketing

Aphinda Mozozoyana	Brenche Loubsher	Christelle Lourens
Aphinda matriculated from Groote Schuur High School in Cape Town and then furthered her studies at Cape Peninsula University of Technology where she obtained a National Diploma in Information Technology. She is currently gaining experience with NMISA as an IT intern for 12 months while studying towards a B Tech degree in IT.	Brenche studied at the University of Pretoria where she obtained her Honours Degree BA Information Design. Post studies, she went on to become a Certified Technical Trainer, Assessor and Moderator whilst training and completing a Business Administration certification at CTU Training Solutions. She specialises in Graphic and Web, Corporate and Private Training in various user packages and Photography. She joined NMISA in the IT Department and will assist with systems, training and web-based applications internally and externally.	Christelle obtained a degree in Public Relations from the TswaneUniversity of Technology and holds a diploma for HTML design. She started her career as PRO for Wilgers Hospital in Pretoria East and thereafter joined Blue Financial Services as the Public Relations Manager. In this portfolio she handled the PR for all 12 African Countries the company was operational in. Christelle is on contract, standing in for Lauren Panagos until end of August 2010.

I feel sorry for the person who can’t get genuinely excited about his work. Not only will he never be satisfied, but he will never achieve anything worthwhile. - Walter Chrysler

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