The National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and
Industrial Quality (Inmetro) was created by law in December, 1973, to
support Brazilian enterprises, to increase their productivity and the
quality of goods and services.
Its major task is to improve the quality of life of the ordinary citizen
as well as to seek the competitiveness of the economy through metrology
and quality.
Some of the duties of Inmetro are:
- to provide technical support to Conmetro - the National Metrology, Standardization
and Industrial Quality
Council, responsible for establishing the national policies on metrology
and quality;
- to implement the national policies on metrology and quality set by Conmetro;
- to maintain the national measurement standards in the country; to establish
and maintain their metrological traceability to the units of the International
System of Units (SI), by participating in international or regional comparisons
establishing their equivalence to internationally accepted standards and
or to standards of other countries; to extend the traceability chain to
the standards of measurement in the country, turning them internally harmonic
and compatible with the international level, envisaging its worldwide
acceptance, all of them
necessary to assure the quality of goods and services;
- to coordinate the compulsory and voluntary certification of products,
processes, services and
the voluntary certification of personnel;
- to plan and carry out the activities of accreditation of calibration
and testing labs, of proficiency test suppliers, of certification bodies,
of inspection, drilling and others, all of which are necessary for the
development of the infrastructure of technological services in the country;
- to manage the Focal Point for Technical Barriers to Trade, responsible
for the Brazilian WTO/TBT Enquiry
Point, for providing Brazilian exporters with information on technical
requirements, as well as supporting the Brazilian government in all international
negotiations on technical barriers to trade;
- to harbor the use of the management technique of quality by the Brazilian
enterprises ;
- to foster the presence of Brazil in the international activities related
to metrology and quality, plus promoting the interchange with and international
bodies.
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Standardization, certification and metrology
