An Assessment Of The Measurement Control Program For Balances At The Los Alamos National Laboratory Plutonium Facility

This paper suggests a revised measurement control program (MCP) for balance at the Los Alamos National Laboratory plutonium facility. The revised MCP is based on an analysis of data taken from June 1981 through August 1983. The most important finding is that significant measurement bias occurs in nearly every balance. An important cause of this bias has been traced to truncation errors, and a detailed discussion of the effects of truncation errors is presented. We also discuss other sources of bias and their resolution, and finally, we suggest methods for determining accuracy, precision, and randomness of measurements of weights and the response to failures of statistical tests.

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