50
FEATURES
50
FEATURES
Understanding
testing and
certification
Plumbing operates in an environment of strictly
regulated standards in which suppliers need to have
evidence that their products comply. Testing and/
or certification is normally an important part of that
process. Plumbing Africa aims to unpack this.
By Eamonn Ryan | All photos by Eamonn Ryan
Non-compliant products pose a potential risk
to the consumer who may be unaware of
differences that are not visually obvious. This
can also be perceived by installers to be a
competitive advantage as they benefit – short
term – by gaining work. However, they lose
clients in the long term due to product failure.
For many decades, the South African Bureau
of Standards (SABS) has been the bastion of
standards and has been recognised as such
internationally. Prior to 2000, SABS tested,
certified and wrote standards, but thereafter,
that responsibility was split so that its core
function remained writing standards, while a new
business was established to offer testing and
certification. This business is today called SABS
Commercial (SOC).
The private sector has – and indeed should –
become more involved in certification, which
culminated in the establishment of SA Watermark
as a register of tested and/or certified products
based on SANS standards. However, plumbers
struggle to differentiate the new certification
marks. Today there are any number of testing
bodies and accreditation facilities including SAPCS,
SABS, IAS, Omega, Bureau Veritas, AENOR,
Agrément, SATAS, as well as SA Watermark
and JASWIC. Some of these do both testing and
certification, including SAPCS, SABS and AENOR,
the others do only testing.
There is a perception that testing and certification
should be done by separate companies, but
the standard states it is preferable that a single
company do both, says Herman Strauss, executive
director of SA Watermark, and previously a senior
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manager at SABS. “The only restriction is that
the standard states the ‘person’ doing the testing
may not be the same person who makes the
certification decision.”
Why do people test and certify?
Strauss outlines how we got to where we are today.
“It is a legal requirement for any product to comply
with the standard – but it is not a legal requirement
for a product to be tested or certified. However, it’s
a very good idea to do so as it is the most effective
way of proving compliance because there’s a third-
party involved. The need for testing and certification
is also implied – because the law requires that you
show evidence that the product complies with its
standard. Certification is arguably the best evidence
of compliance even though it is not a requirement.
“The SABS – which used to be the norm because
it was the only testing and certification authority for
plumbing components – is today one of several.
“There are two facets to the process of
certification: the design verification (which
is testing), and further verification that the
manufacturing process will ensure consistent
products that continue to comply with the
requirements of the standard (which is
certification). The product standard closely defines
the design requirements.
“Compliance to a standard means 100%
compliance – 90% is not enough, because a
standard is a set of minimum requirements.
A test report simply notes that the product
design submitted complies – it is not a license
to manufacture, as it says nothing about the
manufacturing process, which has to be able to
reproduce that product to the same standard time
@PlumbingAfricaOnline
September 2019 Volume 25 I Number 7