Frequently Asked Questions
Do you offer collection and delivery?
What is your turnaround time for calibration?
Who decides when an instrument should be re-calibrated?
Do you send reminders when re-calibration is due?
Do you provide web access to calibration records and
certificates?
What do you do if instruments require adjustment?
What if an instrument fails calibration?
Does the calibration price include batteries and fuses?
Do you subcontract any work?
Do you require a purchase order before starting work?
How do I pay for the work?
VERY IMPORTANT...
If you have any specific requirements regarding the items you want us to calibrate, write them down clearly and put a note with the items when you send them to us. It is not sufficient to simply tell one of our staff on the telephone or email us. We process hundreds of items per week and if you do not put a note with your items detailing what you would like us to do, the chances are you will get our interpretation of a routine calibration.
Do you offer collection and delivery?
We provide a UK mainland collection and delivery service to business premises.
For Ireland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, you will probably find it is cheaper to arrange your own delivery to us. Please contact us for a current price for courier service.
Using our own transport
For regular customers, we offer free weekly collection and delivery using our own vans and drivers to business premises in the following areas:
Cheshire, Clwyd, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, Shropshire, South Yorkshire, West Midlands, West Yorkshire.
There are likely to be some towns or villages in some of the above areas that we cannot cover by our own vans simply because they are too far off our regular runs. Also, if there is no free parking outside your premises (as is the case with some town centre or city centre premises) we cannot provide this service. It is therefore always adviseable to check with us first.
When we use our own vans and drivers there is no need for you to package your equipment prior to collection.
Specified time deliveries are not usually possible.
Please Note: If you require a collection you must request one (by telephone or email - see our Contact page). As this is a free service and we have over 2,000 active customers, we do not automatically call to see every customer every week to check if there is anything to collect.
Using an approved independent courier
If you fall outside the above areas and would like to send some equipment to us for calibration we generally prefer you to make the arrangements using your own courier.
For larger, regular customers and by prior agreement, we can arrange for our approved independent courier to collect your equipment in most areas on the UK mainland. However, because we have no way of knowing beyond doubt what the consignment contained, and we have not packaged the equipment ourselves prior to transportation we cannot accept any liability for loss or damage whilst in transit to us. It is essential therefore that you ensure your equipment is adequately protected, packaged and insured.
If packaging is a problem, we can provide reasonably priced robust plastic transit crates.
Delivery back to yourselves, unless you prefer otherwise, would be by our approved independent courier.
Typical costs are as follows:
Collection from yourselves (up to 20kg) £30.00 plus VAT
Delivery back to yourselves (up to 20kg) £15.00 plus VAT
Please Note: There will likely be exceptions to these prices for some remote areas, particularly in Scotland. With this in mind it is always better to check the price with us first.
Domestic addresses
We do not normally collect from domestic addresses.
Delivery to domestic addresses would normally be by independent courier only and would be chargeable as above.
Insurance against loss or damage
Equipment collected and delivered by our own drivers and vehicles is insured against loss or damage.
Equipment which is collected from a customer by a courier which we have been asked to organise (3rd Party Collection) is not insured, nor can we accept any liability for it.
Customers using a courier service should make sure that any equipment sent by courier is adequately packaged and insured as we will not be liable for any loss or damage to the equipment whilst it is in transit.
From time to time, rather than courier an item back to our customer, we may at the request of, and on behalf of a customer, agree to courier the item to our customer's customer or some other 3rd party. This however is outside of our normal business model and as such the item would not be insured and we will not be liable for any loss or damage to the item.
Again, customers requesting this should ensure their equipment is adequately insured.
What is your turnaround time for calibration?
For items calibrated by ourselves we aim to achieve a turnaround time of 5 working days.
There will of course always be the occasional emergency requiring urgent turnaround. If we can possibly do it more quickly, we will, just ask.
Any item that we have to subcontract will in most cases take longer. This is partly due to losing a couple of days due to the extra time the item spends in transit. Also, other laboratories simply do not turn calibrations around as quickly as we do. They may tell you they have a 5 working day turnaround target, but they seldom hit it.
Who decides when an instrument should be re-calibrated?
Calibration intervals that aren't determined by legal requirements should be determined by the customer, according to ISO17025. However, because most customers have most items re-calibrated every 12 months, our database has a default setting of 12 months. If you are happy with this you need you need do nothing extra, if you want something other than 12 months on anything just put a note with the equipment when you send it in.
Also, calibration labels are printed with a re-calibration date by default because this is what most customers want most of the time. If you want the re-calibration date leaving blank, just let us know and we can switch this off. Please be aware though, that this will affect all calibration labels for all your company's equipment. So if we also deal with other people who work for your company it will affect their labels as well..
Do you send reminders when re-calibration is due?
Monthly calibration recall notices are usually sent to
customers approximately 2 - 3 weeks before the start of each new month. Overdue reports (listing the items that may have been missed) can also be sent upon request.
We operate a database system which tracks and controls all of the work
through our company. For larger customers we can even allocate equipment to your chosen departments if you like so that recall and overdue notices are more meaningful.
Do you provide web access to calibration records and certificates?
Yes, we call it our Inventory Management Solution (IMS). You can use it generate your own calibration recall reminders and calibration overdue reports. You can access calibration certificates going back years. You can even export your entire inventory to a spreadsheet.
To access the system simply click on the IMS link at the top of the page.
Complete the on-line form and submit it. We will then review your details.
Once you have been approved we will activate your username and password and send you an email. You can then start using IMS.
We know you're probably very busy and don't have time to learn your way around a complicated new system. That's why we've made it really simple. There is a help section inside which will only take you a minute or so to read. Then you're away.
What do you do if instruments require adjustment?
Minor adjustments where possible, to bring an instrument back within specification are usually carried out free of charge. As are many minor repairs such as removal of burrs etc on mechanical instruments.
Some instruments requiring extensive or major adjustments, or where adjustment takes a considerable amount of time may be treated as repairs but this work will be quoted for separately. Examples are instruments such as inside micrometers where the majority of the rods require adjustment, or instruments that can only be adjusted by the manufacturer using their own software. It must be stressed though that such instances are the exception rather than the rule.
What if an instrument fails calibration?
Our usual procedure in the event of equipment failing calibration would be to issue a "Failure Notice" to the customer. The failure notice would include equipment details and the nature of failure.
The failure notice may be faxed or emailed whilst the equipment is held at our laboratory, or returned with the equipment to the customer.
There is a reply section where the customer is invited to sentence the equipment, Eg: Repair it, replace it, log as scrapped and return it, or log as scrapped and dispose of it. Once the customer has sentenced the equipment we will take the appropriate action.
If we do not receive a reply to a failure notice within 2 weeks, any equipment which is still held at our laboratory will usually be returned to the customer with a "reject" label.
In cases where an instrument has to be sent to the manufacturer for evaluation a fee will usually be levied, though we would not proceed without first receiving permission.
There will be instances where an instrument might be slightly out of tolerance on say one range, or for some other reason there is information on the calibration certificate that is vital to the user. In these instances we would attach a "Caution" label to the instrument in addition to its calibration label and return it to the customer.
Ultimately, it has to be the customer or end user's responsibility to decide if a piece of measuring equipment is fit for purpose. The calibration process and information contained within the calibration certificate will help the customer or end user to make this decision.
Does the calibration price include batteries and fuses?
If necessary, we will usually replace common inexpensive batteries or fuses within the standard calibration price providing the cost is less than 5% of the value of the calibration.
We reserve the right to charge for changing common inexpensive batteries and/or fuses if we consider the proportion of instruments requiring new batteries and/or fuses is unreasonably high. In such cases the charge for fitting either new batteries or fuses will be £2.50 plus VAT.
If special or rechargeable batteries need to be replaced we will treat this as a repair and we will charge extra for this. We will however, seek your permission before proceeding.
Also, multimeter fuses for example, vary enormously in price from a few pence each to several pounds depending on the type. If more expensive special fuses need to be replaced we will treat this as a repair, and charge extra, but again will seek the your permission before proceeding.
We are a broad based calibration laboratory with a huge range of facilities and more than 95% of the calibration work we do for our customers is done in-house by our own technicians. However, with some larger contracts there will be times when the calibration of certain items is outside of our scope and has to be subcontracted to another calibration laboratory.
We have a large database of approved suppliers and can make the process almost as seamless as if we were doing the work ourselves. The only difference you may notice is longer turnaround time.
Rest assured though, we do not subcontract calibration work without the knowledge of our customers; and we do not pass off another laboratory's calibration results as our own.
Do you require a purchase order before starting work?
Ideally, customers should raise an official purchase order detailing their requirements before we undertake any work.We do not normally undertake any work for a customer without either...
1. An official purchase order. Or at the very least, a purchase order number confirmed in writing or by email.
2. Some other written instruction to proceed. This can be faxed or emailed. If you like you can use the "Place an Order" function on this website.
In the absence of the above you will be required to pay for the work prior to the return of your instruments.
For larger contracts, a limit of liability "call down" type purchase order would be the most efficient route. This type of purchase order would allocate an amount of money over a specific time period, say 1 year.
This negates the need to raise individual purchase orders to cover repairs etc, and thereby speeds up the work.
There is no need to worry about us invoicing against such purchase orders in an uncontrolled manner as we will still seek your permission before proceeding with any work other than routine calibration work.
You can authorise repairs or replacements by completing the reply section on
our "Failure Notice". To authorise other adhoc work or supply you can use the
"Place an Order" function on this website.
Credit account customers with proper purchase order cover will be invoiced.
Alternatively, we can take credit/debit card details over the phone or issue a pro-forma invoice.