Chapter 12
I The First Half Century - The Initial Struggle
II The Second Fifty Years - The Start Of Expansion
III The Third Fifty Years - Federation And The First World War
IV The Fourth Period - Second World War To The Present
i General Conditions
ii Iron and Steel Production
iii Aluminium Technology
iv Innovative Copper Refining Process
v The EDIM-4WD Load-Haul-Dump Vehicle
vi Copper Rod Production
vii Copper Wire and Cables
viii The Diecasting Industry
ix Automotive Components
x Whitegoods or Consumer Durables
xi Hardware
xii Some Recent New Industries
xiii The National Measurement System
xiv Manufacturing Industry in this Decade
xv Acknowledgements
References
Index
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The National Measurement System
Industry is intimately associated with trade and trade is ultimately concerned with measurements, that is the mass, length, volume and properties of goods being transacted. Australia's National Measurement System consists of all activities and mechanisms in the Australian community that provide physical measurement data. These data provide a quantitative basis for decisions in all aspects of daily life. Measurement is all pervasive and has ever increasing economic importance in all technological based societies.The National Standards Commission has responsibility for co-ordinating the national measurement system and it does this through close liaison with the States and Territories, CSIRO, the Standards Association of Australia, the National Association of Testing Authorities, Australia, industry and the community.
The National Measurement Act 1960 specifically requires that CSIRO maintain the primary standards for which there are Commonwealth legal units of measurement. It also offers calibration services mainly for secondary standards and against which the working standards, for example, in State offices, are calibrated. It is essential that instruments used for measurement in trade have traceability through these calibration services back to the primary standards.
The National Standards Commission is responsible for the promotion of uniform legislation in the States and Territories on weights and measures and on instruments used in trade or commerce and the approval of patterns (designs) of such measuring instruments.
The National Association of Testing Authorities, Australia (NATA) is a statutory body, established in 1946 to co-ordinate testing, measurement and calibration facilities throughout Australia to meet the testing and measurement needs of Australia by the identification and recognition of laboratories with demonstrated competence in specific technical areas.
The third arm of the System is the Standards Association of Australia (SAA) which is an independent body formed in 1922 to provide the facilities whereby Australian Standard Specifications may be prepared, published and kept up-to-date. An SAA Standard takes the form of a document containing a concise set of requirements including, where appropriate, procedures for determining that the requirements are satisfied. SAA also issues the AS Mark which is registered as a certification trade mark under the Trade Marks Act. The AS Mark is a third-party certification that an article or product complies with a specified Australian standard.
Organisations in Australian Science at Work - CSIRO; National Association of Testing Authorities, Australia; National Standards Commission; Standards Association of Australia
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Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering |  |
© 1988 Print Edition pages 912 - 913, Online Edition 2000
Published by Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, using the Web Academic Resource Publisher
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/892.html