Following customer requests and increased demand for calibration, Kipp & Zonen made the decision last year to expand our services with improved facilities in the USA and new calibration centres in Singapore and France. The main advantages are the reduction of turnaround time and shipping costs for regional customers.
The start of this project was to improve and further automate the design of the calibration facilities used at the factory in Delft with all-new electronics and software. One of the benefits is that the three new calibration tables at our offices recognise the reference sensors automatically by radio-frequency identification (RFID) and select the relevant information from our database. This is very helpful in preventing errors and makes the calibration process quicker and simpler.
After the development of the new calibration table two of our R&D colleagues from Delft, software engineer Erik Nagel and physicist Ilja Staupe, completed factory acceptance tests of the tables before they were shipped. They both travelled to all three offices to install the new calibration facility and train the engineers thoroughly to ensure that the quality level of Kipp & Zonen is guaranteed. They finished each visit with a successfully completed site acceptance test. All three offices also have the infrared calibration equipment for pyrgeometers.
From our French, Asia Pacific and US offices we can now offer sensitivity calibration of:
- CM and CMP pyranometers, with the exception of the CM 22 and CMP 22
- SMP pyranometers
- CM 4 pyranometer
- CG and CGR 3 pyrgeometers
- CNR 4 net radiometer
- CMA albedometers
All the pyranometer and albedometer calibrations are to Annex A.3 of the international standard ISO 9847 ‘Calibration of Field Pyranometers by Comparison to a Reference Pyranometer’. Annex A.3 refers to ‘Calibration Devices Using Artificial Sources’. The equipment and method is specifically referred to in ISO 9847 as the “Kipp & Zonen Device and Procedure”.
Each office has a set of reference instruments calibrated at the World Radiation Centre (WRC) in Davos, Switzerland.
All the office calibrations are made through the database server in Delft, so that the records are centralised and traceable. These data links also allow remote access to all the calibration facilities, so that Erik and Ilja are able to support our office colleagues and monitor the calibration quality.
“We look forward to randomly checking and testing the database and will not warn our engineers when a secret instrument from a fictitious customer is sent for calibration, to test their competence” says Ilja, who is also a member of our Calibration Committee.
Ong Chee Hiong, Service Engineer at Kipp & Zonen APAC
“My first calibration went smoothly and the customer was pleasantly surprised with the short lead time of 1 week! Previously it used to be 4 to 6 weeks because it had to be sent back to Delft. With the implementation of the new calibration lab in Singapore, and calibration support from the factory, APAC customers can now send their instruments directly to us and still be sure of the same accuracy of the sensors without worrying about the turnaround time.”
Pierre Simonneaud, Customer Support Technician at Kipp & Zonen France
“After training from our R&D colleagues on how to use the calibration facility, I was able to successfully perform my first calibration. It was a real pleasure using the calibration facility, and discovering all its advantages; automated, RFID, connected to server, etc. Thanks to this new facility, customers can be sure to have their instruments inspected and calibrated within a short time and with French Quality! We expect to calibrate instruments in less than 2 weeks, while the average lead time used to be around 4 weeks.”
Victor Casella, Sales & Marketing Manager Scientific Markets at Kipp & Zonen U.S.A.
“We have been doing calibrations under the Kipp & Zonen guidelines since 2008. Now, together with the other Kipp & Zonen offices, the US Office has made the investment to have a fully duplicated traceable calibration table for future use. Over the past years we have prided ourselves on quick turnaround times, in most cases less than a week. We can also schedule services so we can turn the instruments around in 24 hours if emergencies come up.”