History

During the Helvetic republic around 1800, the municipal and cantonal sovereignty for weights and measures was significantly influenced by France and Prof J. G. Tralles. It was only 30 years later that 12 cantons entered a voluntary concordat .

Jurisdiction at a Federal level was not established until 1848 with the founding of the Federal States, yet lacking competent authority and means of regulating the weights and measures system. In 1862, the weights and measures inspectorate (Prof. H. Wild) and the founding of the Swiss Federal Verification Office brought significant improvements .

The constitutional Article on Weights and Measures, still valid today, was followed by an implementation law in 1874 and by the Metre Convention in 1875. As a founding member of the Metric Convention, Switzerland received the new original measures, a meter stick made of platinum-iridium, and a kilogram of platinum in 1889. Essential improvements requested by industry were not realized until 1906 after an expert commission completed its work .

With the amendment of the Federal Law of Weights and Measures in 1909 followed the transformation of the Swiss Federal Verification Office into the Swiss Federal Office of Weights and Measures (AMG). Just five years later it moved into its own premises on the Wildstrasse in Bern. Until 1950, the AMG with its staff of twelve carried out a multitude of verification and examination assignments but hardly any fundamental metrology functions .

In 1955, Switzerland joined the Organisation Internationale de Métrologie Légale (OIML), whose aim it is to harmonise the legal specifications of applicable measuring instruments .

In 1954/58, the revision of the Weights and Measures Law resulted in a widening of the scope of assignments. An examination had shown that, by 1967, the personnel and space requirements had quadrupled to 54 persons within less than 17 years which resulted in the transfer of the offices into a new complex of buildings in the Bern suburb of Wabern .

In April 1966, a giant Russian helicopter raised the five-ton girder onto the tower of the new structure in Wabern .

Due to the enactment of the Federal Law on Weights and Measures in 1977, the AMG gave way to the Swiss Federal Office of Metrology (OFMET) whose responsibilities were expanded significantly. The development of metrology fundamentals which followed, combined with the rapid development in all measurement equipment fields, resulted in significant and readily apparent changes. The founding of the Swiss Calibration Service in 1986 and the Swiss Accreditation Service in 1991 as well as more intensive European cooperation contributed to this, too. There were also changes for the cantonal verification officers; a new training concept and a federally recognized higher education programme were developed .

An eight-year planning, project, and construction phase was successfully concluded in May 2001 with the opening of an extension. The new buildings increase the usable area of the existing buildings from the sixties by more than half, to 15 000 m². The costs amount to 54.4 million Francs .