The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has warned steel manufacturers to calibrate their equipment used for the production of steel rods and reinforcement bars or be forced out of business.
The Director General, SON, Mallam Farouk Salim, said it is not business as usual, as the agency will ensure that all equipment used in measuring various parameters are calibrated in the country.
The SON boss stated this at a stakeholders’ forum with Steel Manufacturers Association of Nigeria recently. He stated that SON has acquired the latest measuring instruments to ensure compliance with standards, pointing out that the standards body is fully equipped to carry out calibration of the equipment used in the steel industry, maritime, oil and gas other industries.
Salim said all the weighbridges; the universal textile machines must be calibrated to achieve equity in the business while also ensuring that products do not fall short of the requirements of the standards.
The Director, National Metrology Institute (NMI), SON, Bede Obayi in his remarks said the institute represents Nigeria in all matters of metrology, stating that the highest accuracy standard of measurement in Nigeria is traceable to NMI.
He added: “Metrology ensures that all the National Quality Infrastructure (NQI) for Nigeria’s economic development stands which means that every component for infrastructural development projects to stand, measurement must be accurate, traceable to the highest level of measurement instruments in Nigeria and these are stored in the institute.”
He noted that the NMI has the capacity to handle such measurements in the areas of mass and related quantities such as pressure, volume, temperature, metrology in chemistry, electrical measurements, dimensions, lengths and all the other parameters that can help Nigeria achieve economic development.
Highlighting some of the economic benefits of metrology, he said metrology facilitates transactions in trade and commerce, serves as a pillar for the development of science, helps in the determination of major physical and chemical constants and bring about the development of technology to a nation and promotes mass production in industries.
He also said that it serves as a catalyst for compliance monitoring and control of substandard products in a nation and has been generally accepted that there is a direct relationship between the accurate measurement capability and industrial development of a country.