Calibration Means Different Things in Different Professions
In 2006, two professional Metrology organizations partnered to create job descriptions for workers in the Metrology field. Their intent was to submit them for inclusion into the 2010 SOC (Standard Occupation Classification) system. The SOC system is used by Federal statistical agencies to classify workers into occupational categories for collecting, calculating, or disseminating data. But, they ran into a problem.
The SOC provides a list of occupations used in the U.S. Dept. of Labor’s OOH (Occupational Outlook Handbook). The OOH is the federal guide to career information used by educators and councilors to inform students and candidates about hundreds of occupations in terms of job forecasts, tasks performed, required skills and training, etc. Without metrology worker job descriptions listed in the SOC and subsequently in the OOH, the likelihood of educators and councilors informing students and candidates about opportunities in the metrology field is drastically diminished.
In 2008, SOC administrators denied inclusion of the submitted metrology job descriptions for the 2010 SOC citing the primary reason as:
Workers performing metrology and calibration tasks as their primary activity is not substantial (unique) enough to support new detailed occupations, and that metrology occupations are dispersed across many industries i.e. uniqueness of tasks.
Unfortunately, the aforementioned submission efforts failed to adequately substantiate the case of uniqueness for metrology workers as determined by SOC administrators.
Full article by Chris Grachanen, EDN Network
About the Author
Roger Chu is the Marketing Coordinator at GSAmart, the leading GSA sales and marketing partner for technology companies.
