OWM Background and History

The Office of Weights and Measures (OWM) is the oldest office at NIST and holds a unique position, with its functions predating NBS and the U.S. Department of Commerce. Our original function, to “fix the standard of weights and measures,” is explicitly mentioned in the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8), in addition to our other Responsibilities and Authorities. 

On June 14, 1836, the 24th U.S. Congress directed the Secretary of the Treasury to construct and verify "a complete set of all the weights and measures adopted as standards... for the use of the States respectively, to the end that an uniform standard of weights and measures may be established throughout the United States." On March 3, 1901, the 56th U.S. Congress established "that the Office of Standard Weights and Measures shall hereafter be known as the National Bureau of Standards (NBS)." 

OWM continues to serve a pivotal role for NIST as the National Metrology Institute (NMI) for the U.S. and for supporting the weights and measures system across the U.S. states and national and international legal metrology communities. 

OWM Staff and Technical Experts operate within four core Program Areas and work with our Customers and Stakeholders across a range of industry sectors – such as retail sales, petroleum and chemical products, and transportation, including emerging commercial market sectors such as electric vehicles and e-commerce.  We also work closely with international and national standards development organizations, federal agencies, state and local metrology and weights and measures programs, and metric program educators. 

OWM Products and Services include legal metrology documentary standards; technical guidance and resources related to weights and measures applications, promotion of the metric system, SI use and traceability; and metrology training for industry, state laboratory metrologists, and weights and measures officials. 

Credit: NIST/K. Dill

OWM estimates that weights and measures laws and regulations impact commercial transactions involving approximately 45 % of the 2022 U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 

See the details of the analysis on our Weights and Measures Economic Index page.