This chapter contains some personal comments on research, manufacturing variation, quality, existing and new flow measurement challenges, micro-engineering devices and new techniques for existing and new flow metering concepts.

I pose the following questions with brief explanation based on my knowledge of the flow measurement industry.

Is there an Opportunity to Develop New Designs in Collaboration with the Science Base?

There is a need and an opportunity for the flow metering industry on one hand, and the science base as it relates to instrumentation on the other, to exploit effective means for technology transfer and to bridge the gap between them, which in the process will raise the profile of the instrumentation sector and ensure that government is aware of its importance. Past experience of encouraging collaboration suggests that industry and the science base do not always appreciate the value of working together. Fundamental and unsolved issues remain in the technology which would benefit from collaboration between industry and the science base. Such collaboration should be mutually beneficial in making the other party aware of important developments.

This gap could also be reduced by facilitating exchanges of people between industry and the science base. Industrial collaboration is an essential part of ensuring that academic engineering and applied science research is focused on the real problems of industry, and the cross-fertilisation will be very likely to generate new ideas.

Over the past 15 years or so, I have found close collaboration with several companies in research and teaching extremely rewarding.

Is Manufacture of High Enough Quality?

The quality of an instrument, and thus its ultimate accuracy, will clearly be affected by the manufacturing process. The manufacturing variation may have predictable consequences for the flowmeter accuracy. Slight variation may require calibration of each instrument. Instruments off the same production process might have different characteristics which may require small adjustments to the product before final calibration. Some changes may cause finished instruments to have different random errors.

The production of instrumentation is a special case in which every finished product may be measured (calibrated) and also the effect of the production process on the final accuracy of the instrument may, in some cases, be predicted and used to specify the production requirements.