Serbian National Metrology Institute (DMDM)

At the 49th CIML Meeting in Auckland, New Zealand in November 2014, CIML President Peter Mason announced that the Sixth OIML Award for Excellent Contributions in Legal Metrology in Developing Countries went to the Serbian National Metrology Institute, the DMDM, and its Director, Mrs. Vida Živkovic.

The DMDM, he continued, had commendably managed to reform legal metrology services in Serbia. They had implemented a clearly formulated national quality infrastructure strategy, and were proactively preparing for the metrology relevant requirements of accession to the European Union.

As a result of economic reforms and a decentralization and privatization process, the DMDM now supervised more than 60 ISO 17020 accredited inspection bodies, which conducted most of the normal measuring instrument verifications. This left the DMDM free to reform only the highly specialized verifications, for which it alone had the national capability.

In the context of the accession process to the European Union, the relevant Directives had been transposed into Serbian national legislation, and this legislation had either already been implemented or was in the process of being implemented; this of course involved the application of a number of important OIML Recommendations.

Mr. Mason added that in all of the awards, the OIML depended very heavily on the nature of the recommendations put to them by organizations knowledgeable in the field not only of developing countries but also, as they were encouraged to refer to them, the countries and economies with emerging metrology systems. He knew there had been some debate about whether Serbia should be regarded as a developing country, but he was certain that there could be no doubt that they had faced the challenges of an emerging metrology system extremely competently and in a well-organized and imaginative fashion. The award would therefore be presented to them at an appropriate time. Unfortunately, no representative from Serbia was able to be present; however, Members would be aware that it was the practice to give the award in one year and to invite the recipient to give a presentation on their own activities the following year, and this was what would be done in the case of the sixth award.