Why ISO accreditation gives photonics procurement teams in regulated industries confidence 

This World Metrology Day, Nathan Cosbie-Ross, Metrology Supervisor for Knight Optical, explains how ISO 9001 accreditation, and the rigorous in-house measurement processes that underpins it, gives optical engineering teams in highly regulated sectors the confidence they need to navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape.

As the global photonics industry faces tightening supply chain scrutiny and evolving regulatory requirements, precision optical component specialist Knight Optical is marking World Metrology Day (20 May 2026) by highlighting the critical link between formal quality accreditation and procurement confidence in regulated markets.

For procurement teams sourcing precision optics into defence systems, space instrumentation or medical devices, a supplier needs to be able to prove that a component meets specifications, repeatedly and traceably, across every batch, every revision and every policy change.

Accreditation as a trust signal

Knight Optical holds ISO 9001 accreditation, certified by the British Assessment Bureau (BAB).

Cosbie-Ross explains what this means in practice for customers: “ISO 9001 certification covers the whole company and all our processes, including how we run our metrology operations. It means that when a customer asks us to verify a component against a drawing, we can show them not just the result, but the complete chain of evidence behind it: which instrument was used, when it was last calibrated, how it was serviced, and how the measurement traces back to national standards. That traceability is what procurement teams in regulated industries are increasingly asking for, and it’s what sets a professionally accredited supplier apart.”

Knight Optical operates within and is governed by the company’s ISO 9001 certified quality management system, which defines the calibration schedules, servicing records and measurement procedures that apply across all testing activity.

Traceability from drawing to delivered component

Under its quality management system, Knight Optical maintains full calibration and service records for every instrument in its metrology facility.

Every optical component can be traced through documented measurement history, and any change to a customer drawing is captured and managed within the same framework.

Cosbie-Ross elaborates: “If a customer’s drawing changes, even partway through a production run, our proprietary software ensures the revision is tracked and that subsequent measurements are checked against the updated surface profile. We can go back and show the history of every batch. For a procurement team dealing with an audit or a regulatory inspection, that audit trail is invaluable.”

Testing against industry and military standards

Knight Optical’s metrology capabilities extend beyond dimensional verification. The facility can test components against recognised industry and military specifications, including:

• MIL-C-14806A – reflection-reducing coatings for instrument cover glasses and lighting wedges
• MIL-G-174B – optical glass

The ability to test and certify against mil-spec standards is particularly relevant for defence and aerospace procurement teams, where component qualification may require documented evidence of coating durability and optical performance under specific conditions.

The Metrology facility: What it can test

Knight Optical’s testing and inspection department is equipped with a suite of state-of-the-art metrology instruments capable of characterising the full range of optical component parameters:

• Zygo Interferometer – a high precision optical measuring instrument used to check how accurate and uniform an optical surface is. It is one of the most trusted tools in the optics industry for measuring flatness, surface quality, wavefront error, and radius of curvature.

• Varian Cary 5000 UV-Vis-NIR Spectrophotometers (x 2) – transmission and reflection measurement from 175–3300 nm, covering bandpass filters, AR coatings, mirrors, and complex beamsplitters.

• Agilent Cary Universal Measurement Accessory (UMA) – provides the ability to automatically measure absolute specular reflectance, transmission and scattering at a wide range of angles and different polarisations.

• Diffuse Reflectance Accessory (DRA) – performs reflectance, transmittance, or absorptance measurements of diffuse, specular, or mixed samples.

• Trioptics Optispheric with Opticentric addon – lens testing for focal length, back focal length, MTF, radius of curvature, and centration errors to better than 1 micron.

• Trioptics Prism Master – precision goniometer for angular measurement of high-precision parallel optics, prisms, beamsplitter cubes and rhomboids to ±3 arc seconds.
• Starrett AV300R Video Imaging System – automated dimensional and angular measurement of optical components to ±0.1 μm.

Full test reports, transmission graphs and certification documentation can be provided alongside components, supporting seamless integration into a customer’s own quality documentation.

Policy changes and procurement resilience

For regulated industries, the challenge of supply chain assurance is compounded by a rapidly shifting policy environment: changing export controls, evolving defence procurement standards and increasingly stringent medical device regulations all create pressure on procurement teams to demonstrate due diligence in their supplier selection.

Cosbie-Ross concluded by saying, “When policies change, procurement teams need to be able to show their auditors that their suppliers were operating to documented, independently assessed standards, not just at the point of qualification, but consistently over time. Our ISO 9001 certification, our calibrated instruments and our traceable measurement records give them that evidence.”

This year’s World Metrology Day theme – ‘Metrology: Building Trust in Policy Making’ – resonates directly with the challenge facing regulated industries. For procurement teams sourcing precision optical components for defence, space or medical applications, trust is built on the documented, independently assessed quality systems that stand behind every measurement.

About Knight Optical

Knight Optical is a UK-based, ISO9001 and UKAS ISO14001 accredited company serving a diverse customer base in scientific, medical, pharmaceutical, optoelectronics, laser, R&D, oil and gas and industrial sectors. Knight Optical has sales offices in Kent, UK and Rhode Island, USA. For product and service information, please email info@knightoptical.co.uk.