The DCC is more than the simple transfer of all contents of the previously used analogue calibration certificate, i.e. the printout of measurement results on a piece of paper, which has special characteristics and may be considered a document. It is also more than the straight conversion of paper into e.g. PDF, because it is not only readable by humans, but in particular also readable and intepretable by machines. This is realised by storing the data in a clearly defined form. A very large amount of data can easily be stored in the DCC in a more clearly defined way than was previously possible.
At the first international DCC conference in October 2020, a larger number of videos on the DCC were presented. These videos are available with subtitles in Chinese, German, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
Here is the link to the video describing the DCC:
The general structure of the DCC is divided into four areas:
Please select a tab
Every calibration certificate contains administrative data, of course also the DCC. This data is used, for example, to fulfil required specifications promoted by ISO/IEC 170251.
To ensure unambiguous assignment, the following data are mandatory:
Each DCC contains a separate section for the measurement results. Here, the requirements from ISO/IEC 17025 are recorded that relate to the measurement process.
ISO/IEC 17025 sets numerous requirements for the documentation of calibration results, e.g.:
In this area of the DCC, all information can be stored that is not directly related to the specific calibration. For example, additional information required by the customer in addition to the calibration can be provided here. The Digital Calibration Answer (DCA) could also be stored here. This area is not mandatory.
In section 7.8, ISO/ICE 17025 refers to "reporting of results", which are generally called calibration certificates. It is not specified whether they have to be in paper form or electronically. Therefore, this section is not mandatory as the result of the calibration is already fully deposited in the Administrative Data and Measurement Results sections.
It is the claim of the DCC that it is machine-interpretable and human-readable. Therefore, from the very beginning, emphasis was placed on having a human-readable section in the DCC as well (although XML can be read with some practice).
The format of the human-readable part of the DCC is not fixed. What is important, however, is that the content of the human-readable area is derived from the data and measurement results in the Administrative areas. It is left to the agreement between the calibration laboratory and the client which parts of the information from the Administrative Data and Measurement Results sections are presented in the human-readable section. This makes sense, because a lot of data can be stored in the DCC without any problems, which was not included in the previously common form of the analogue calibration certificate for reasons of space. It also makes sense to output the content of powerful columns of numbers as graphics, because this opens up a good possibility for humans to view results.