NEWS
5
ITD receives new certification,
evening out the playing field
International Tap Distributors’ (ITD) products are now certified through a new
South African National Accreditation System (SANAS) certification company.
By Benjamin Brits
Since 2015, as with many other suppliers or
manufacturers in the market, ITD had been struggling to
get the required certification through the South African
Bureau of Standards (SABS).
In 2016, ITD experienced a breakdown in communications
coming out of the SABS.
“Now for many companies in the sector, without certification,
we sit with a major problem with getting occupation
certificates for supply to new build customers, an issue
that has had a significant impact on revenue growth,” says
Michael Simoes, managing director of ITD.
In 2017 ITD was faced with a decision on a way to resolve
their certification challenges and engaged with a new
certification company – South African Product Certification
Services (SAPCS), that has since been through the SANAS
accreditation process. Having had so many dead-ends with
the SABS, ITD then opted to take up the risk and proceed
with SAPCS, as they would need to go through the process
of certification either way.
With the support of Assurance Testing Laboratories
(ATL) a SANAS-accredited testing laboratory, SAPCS is a
certification body that will evaluate the necessary process of
accreditation, and also ensure the correct testing procedures
are in place according to the requirements of the standards.
As a SANAS-accredited company, certificates issued by
SACPS are the equivalent of a SABS certificate as testing
is performed to the same standards, and the same testing
methodology is used. Municipal bylaws also clearly stipulate
that products can be approved by an ‘equivalent certification’
to that of the SABS.
“The amount of time and effort that business has to go
through in trying to be compliant and the massive risk
in spending large amounts of money in the process is
extremely frustrating. The length of the process in itself
is also a daunting experience, only for the goalposts to
be shifted all the time, as in the cases where certain
municipalities don’t accept certification that is not SABS
approved,” Simoes says.
www.plumbingafrica.co.za
“The Joint Acceptance Scheme for Water Services
Installation Components (JASWIC) is a listing authority, but
the problem that needs to be addressed is that some of
the SANS standards are very outdated and have not been
through a process of continuous review. This puts the
industry on the back foot of technology advancements. As
an example of this, SANS 226 doesn’t cater to a progressive
cartridge – an advancement used to great effect in certain
medical mixers today, so because the standard doesn’t cater
to this, and despite meeting all the other requirements of
the relevant standard, it technically cannot be listed with
JASWIC, so we sit in a situation where we need to solve the
challenge of how to introduce new products to the market,”
Simoes says.
ITD, a subsidiary of Italtile Limited – a listed company
celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, as with many other
reputable companies in South Africa, is a business that has
been around for 19 years which has a full customer
complaint tracking system where the reason for the failure
of every single product that is returned is logged, analysed,
and results are sent to the supplier for feedback
and improvement.
“Management can guarantee that for the last five years
they are able to report on the exact reason for every failed
product, and we are not considered a fly-by-night company,
but these challenges hamper the companies who are trying
to play by the rules. ITD buys from factories that come with
the highest international certification, and we are happy
to put our stamp of guarantee that we honour, but if any
element of a product is not 100% to the standard, no matter
how advanced in water or energy savings, you can’t bring
the product into the new build space. We need products
that carry innovation especially in water and energy saving
technology, and we need a system and process to support it.
There needs to be a focus on fixing the system and making
it more efficient for those businesses who are trying to do
the right thing,” Simoes concludes.
Having walked the path with the SAPCS over the last
two years, ITD has already received certification on
21 of its products/ranges with others still in the
pipeline of processing. PA
July 2019 Volume 25 I Number 5