Quality infrastructure of national metrology institutes: A comparative study

Each country has its own system of Quality Infrastructure (QI) developed for the effective operations, management, regulations, control of national trade, international exchanges of goods & collaborations and recognition of their products and services to enable them to enter into the global market. These QI systems consist of national governments, civic, public and private institutions, organizations, boards, associations, forums, scientific societies, federations industries etc. These agencies work in coordination and with synergy to formulate, suggest, execute, disseminate and implement, as per their relevant responsibilities; the national policies, procedures; guidelines, legal & regulatory structure, and good practices to support and strengthen the quality for safe & environmentally friendly products, services, and processes. It relies on metrology, standardization, accreditation, and conformity assessment. Several countries have strong QI, and accordingly, have proper industrial and economic growth. On the contrary, some of the countries lack the necessary infrastructure to meet the quality standards, and as a result, they face problems and challenges in this competitive world. This paper describes the essential components of stronger International Quality Infrastructure (IQI) and the National Quality Infrastructure (NQI). A comparative study carried out on the NQIs of 9 leading countries is also discussed. A comparative study on the Global Quality Infrastructure Index (GQII) of the top 10 economies is also included. Admittedly, though utmost care is taken to accommodate most relevant information, some of the unnoticed discrepancies are not ruled out, which may be unintentional. It is hoped that this paper would be useful for students, researchers, academicians, scientists, metrologists, quality experts, administrators, and policymakers as an information bank on NQIs and GQIIs of several countries.