Don’t Run Your Calibration Lab Like Blockbuster

One of the quotes I love is by Henry Ford: “If I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Another quote is from Neil deGrasse Tyson: “In the 1900s, horses were everywhere; by 1920, you couldn’t give a horse away.” These two quotes, with the title “Don’t run your calibration lab like Blockbuster,” highlight the coming changes to the calibration industry. Digitization is coming, and these changes will change how we do business. Most importantly, these changes will happen fast, and any calibration that is slow to adapt will be left in the past.

There has been a lot of talk about “digital transformation.” This is more than simply going paperless or giving your customers a thumb drive with all their calibration certificates on it. The digitization of the metrology market will fundamentally change a calibration lab’s business operations. Labs that don’t keep up with technology will be left behind.

I use Blockbuster as an example because Blockbuster’s failure serves as a cautionary tale for businesses that fail to adapt to changing market conditions. Despite being a dominant force in the home video rental industry for decades, Blockbuster failed to recognize the potential of streaming services like Netflix. The company’s downfall highlights the importance of staying ahead of technological advancements and meeting customers’ evolving needs.

Just like horses in the 1900s, you can’t find a Redbox and I haven’t watched a DVD from Netflix in years. In under 20 years, the market shifted from renting DVDs to streaming. We are going to see the same kind of shift in the calibration lab. Getting an item calibrated is expensive, and the expense can be tied directly to the equipment used and labor. Changing the required hardware is difficult. The reference standards required for a calibration are expensive, and replacement hardware is not often available at a lower cost. This leaves labor as the only remaining area a lab can focus on to cut costs. But the only way to reduce those costs is to automate the calibration or simply test fewer test points with every calibration–that is if you are still running your lab in the older, Blockbuster-type paradigm.

What if you could get out of the Blockbuster-style lab operations and think new and differently. Technology is now becoming available that would allow customers to select what they want tested on a UUT. This would allow them to select the test points they need for traceability based on how they use the equipment. This could reduce the calibration cost by as much as 90% because very few pieces of test equipment get used to 100% of their functions and range. Then, what if those custom-selected test points could be automated without a programmer writing a custom calibration script for every customer’s unique selection of test points?

If you told me in 1990 that I would be streaming all my TV shows and movies over the internet, I would have said, “Yeah, right.”

On-demand streaming in 1990 wasn’t yet available, so Blockbuster was king while we still needed a physical cassette or DVD. But technology changed, which is precisely what is happening now with the digitization of metrology.

When I told one of my customers we could increase his lab’s throughput by not testing what the customer doesn’t need tested. He replied, “Yeah, Right. How would you manage that?” I replied that technology is changing; this is just one of the things possible with digitization.

Digital transformation is not a luxury but a necessity for calibration labs to survive in the future. By embracing technology, labs can enhance their efficiency, provide superior customer service, and secure their place in the ever-evolving metrology landscape. It is time to get involved in the Digital Revolution!