Associations
BEYOND TESTING The testing of products and systems is essential to determine whether performance meets specified requirements of the standard and this is done in controlled and simulated environments . Test reports provide information about a product at the time of testing and are limited to the very sample tested . Test reports do not imply that all the same / similar products also comply or would pass the testing requirements .
Conformity assessment testing assists manufacturers during their product development phases to ensure that relevant modifications or enhancements can be made to meet specified criteria as well as to boost the quality of the product . Retailers and consumers are more likely to sell and buy goods and services that have been tested and have successfully passed testing to SANS or specific requirements .
WHY TESTING DOESN ’ T PROVIDE THE SAME ASSURANCE AS CERTIFICATION There are a number of reasons for this and includes :
• A golden sample scenario , wherein a manufacturer produces a high-quality product with the intent of passing required testing and once a test report is obtained then produces inferior products or changes the ingredients of the product in order to make the products cheaper to manufacture .
• Poor manufacturing conditions , while a product may be successfully tested for performance it can be produced in unsuitable conditions that may result in contamination of products or the ingredients used . There is also no assurance that the quality of future products will be the same as that of the sample submitted for testing .
• Partial testing , especially with large products / equipment . It is not feasible to subject large products or products that are customised to full performance testing such as mining equipment , cars or transformers or in instances where the manufacturer is developing a product and is interested in a specific parameter they would normally approach the SABS laboratories for testing of only the parameters of interest .
• Insufficient testing such as with fast moving consumer goods , where several batches of products are manufactured . Given the nature of the industry , once-off testing is insufficient to provide the relevant assurance that all the products in the batch or subsequent batches are made to the same quality as the samples that successfully passed a test .
“ A SABS test report reflects the results of specific conditions for a particular sample only and it is irresponsible for
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RACA Journal I March 2022 www . hvacronline . co . za