About USMS

What is the USMS?

The United States Measurement System (USMS) encompasses all private and public organizations that develop, supply, use, or ensure the validity of measurement solutions. Together, these entities provide and apply the tools required by science and industry to accelerate innovation. While there is no official membership to the USMS, the professionals and institutions that comprise the USMS - and the relationships among them - make up the foundation of our country's innovation infrastructure.

What is the USMS Office?

The USMS Office at the National institute of Science and Technology (NIST) helps identify and foster efforts to address unmet measurement needs. Currently, we are developing and implementing tools to encourage and facilitate the involvement of all USMS partners. In addition to providing measurement information resources, the USMS Office is also developing and implementing methodologies to assess the USMS. For example, the USMS Office is currently conducting two focused analyses with others planned for the future: the first in Environmental, Health and Safety in the Nanotechnology Sector; the second for Biomass, Hydrogen, and Solar in the Alternative Energy Sector.

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What is the USMS Office Doing?

Tools and methods developed by the NIST USMS Office will provide measurement-related knowledge that will enable industry and other entities to inform their own strategic decision making processes, prioritize measurement concerns, and develop and apply measurement solutions. In pursuit of its objective to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the USMS in developing and deploying measurement solutions, the USMS Office is developing:

• A Measurement Knowledge Hub that provides accessibility to measurement needs, solutions, and other knowledge;
  
  The Measurement Knowledge Hub will serve as a meeting place for measurement solution providers and users, and it will contain a continually evolving Measurement Needs and Solutions Databases which will serve as the foundation for later analyses. Key Hub features will include forums for specific interests, with opportunities to discuss sets of measurement needs; a Technology Roadmaps database; tools for tailoring analyses of measurement needs; and links to important events and resources.
• Enhanced methodologies to enable the continuing assessment of the USMS
  
  In addition to providing measurement information resources, NIST USMS Office is also developing and implementing enhanced methodologies to use this information to assess the USMS. NIST is currently conducting several sector specific analyses, the results of which will be published in a report and used as a basis for continued communication among measurement solution providers and users.
• A Measurement Needs Toolkit to facilitate action on the part of both measurement solution providers and users.
  
  NIST USMS Office will develop and release a USMS Measurement Needs Toolkit to help our partners identify measurement needs and solutions. This toolkit is intended to assist Measurement Solution Providers and Users in strategic decision making as well as development of critical measurement solutions.

What is the Role of NIST?

The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), in its unique role as the nation’s national measurement institute, has committed to participate in each of the seven actions:

• Promoting awareness of critical measurement needs
• Identifying strategies to bolster the effectiveness of USMS solution providers and accelerating development and delivery of measurement technologies that respond to measurement problems impeding innovation
• Fostering collaboration to accelerate measurement breakthroughs
• Encouraging industrial sectors to identify and prioritize measurement needs facilitating pursuit of solutions to specific industry measurement problems documented in this assessment
• Identifying shared measurement needs and opportunities for synergy across industries and research areas
• Fostering strategic public-sector investments in measurement R&D to accelerate technological innovation by
  • Keeping end users and solution providers informed of federal measurement capabilities
  • Incorporating insights from this assessment into strategic and program plans
  • Establishing an explicit agenda for measurement innovation

What is the National Measurement System (NMS)?

The NMS is situated within—and operates in support of—the broader USMS. In the United States, as elsewhere, key functions of the NMS are as follows:

• To ensure the reliability and uniformity of measurement results, as is required for orderly markets and technological innovation
• To enable comparability of measurements through linkages to the international measurement system, as is required to integrate the United States with the global economy