Invited Paper VT-MoA8
VTD Early Career Award Invited Talk: Modern Metrology Practice for Calibration and Reliability Testing of Vacuum Measurement Products
Vacuum technology is traditionally very slow moving in terms of new techniques and innovations. The measurement techniques of today don’t differ drastically from 20 years ago or even longer. That does not mean there aren’t new ways we can think about how we use that measurement technology in a metrology lab today. Often times, critical vacuum measurements take time; time being a taboo word in today’s product development discussions. There are many practices to help us reduce time waste while still ensuring good vacuum measurement. Principles of Lean have helped us to reduce types of waste in our lab creating an efficient environment where experiments can be set up accurately and timely. Similarly, Six Sigma ideas have given us a set of tools and a common language to quickly identify root cause for problems and simplify our data analysis techniques. These same tools have helped us to identify critical parameters for measurement systems analysis and better understanding of our measurement uncertainties when making measurements compared to our best in class Spinning Rotor, Stabil-Ion®, and Baratron® reference transducers. To further simplify our lab experience, vacuum system complexity has been reduced by an effort to separate the vacuum control system from our test development in which any user can interface with a vacuum system in the same way they would interface with a common laboratory instrument whether manually, or through a programming interface. Finally, none of this matters unless we are making our measurements with our customers in mind. Several customer applications have been reproduced and turned into standard tests for our products to improve our customers experience and our overall product performance and reliability.