Calibration costs time and money so it is important to adopt a standard that is comprehensive enough to cover the needs of the application, but not so comprehensive that time and money is spent needlessly. The calibration should be comprehensive enough to ensure that the uncertainty is four times better than the system that is to be calibrated.

If measuring the uncertainty is too cumbersome, too complex or insufficient, time should be invested in the project so that an appreciation of the uncertainty should be attempted.

For example: If the test rig on which the load cell is being used can only consistently reproduce loads to an accuracy of 5 lbs, then a load cell calibration that ensures better than 1.25 lbs is likely to be sufficient.