It Is Time Measuring Instruments Report Measurement Uncertainty

When reporting the result of a measurement, the Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM) makes it clear that a complete result includes a measured value and an associated value of uncertainty. Measuring instruments compute and then indicate a measured value, but many, if not most instruments provide no indication of the measurement uncertainty. This leaves the metrologist to compute the uncertainty necessitating two parallel computation paths. One path is through the measuring instrument, the other managed by the metrologist. It is possible to merge these two paths where the instrument computes the uncertainty. This positively impacts the metrologist's workflow. This paper takes a previously reported measurement as a use case and compares the metrologist's workflow assuming measuring instruments that report measurement uncertainty to those that do not. The comparison shows that measurement uncertainty reporting instruments significantly improve metrologist efficiency, leads to better estimates of uncertainty and, enables enhanced methods of managing and monitoring measurement processes.