Measurements: A cost or a revenue maker? [President´s Perspectives]

I wonder if you share my feelings about industry´s view of metrology. Whenever I visit an industrial plant, I frequently find that metrologists in a Test & Measurement (T&M) department are confined to manage incoming inspections and final tests. They seem to be considered annoying people, whose main goal is to find somebody else´s failure to meet a required product specification or a quality standard e.g. the ISO 9,000 series of Standards. They are not seen as an asset in the production process, but as an undesirable, though necessary cost.