ENGINEERING
Case study : SANAS accredited product certification
By Abe Stears , Managing Director , SATAS
Much has been spoken of the benefits enjoyed by a supplier and an end-user when products are ‘ certified ’ by a recognised authority and what that certification is meant to achieve .
These benefits are simply meant to be :
• The supplier , through their ‘ certification ’ should consistently supply a product that complies with the requirements defined in the end-user ’ s purchase specification .
• The end-user should be confident that the product supplied by a ‘ certified ’ supplier consistently complies with their purchase specification and no further quality control activities are required to demonstrate compliance .
In practical terms , there are several avenues a supplier and / or end-user may utilise to instil confidence levels in ensuring products are produced to specification . These ‘ certified ’ options include a SANAS Accredited Product Certification Scheme and then a whole host of ‘ acceptance ’ schemes which are generally administered by amongst others , joint associations , industrial associations and non-governmental organisations . Unfortunately , all of these ‘ acceptance ’ schemes are generally not accredited by any Accreditation Body to a suitable and / or recognised standard .
For a better understanding of what end-users need to know about SANAS Accredited Product Certification , a brief outline is explained below .
For any Product Certification Body to be accepted it is essential that the Certification Body is accredited to the stringent requirements defined in the ISO / IEC 17065:2012 Conformity assessment — Requirements for bodies certifying products , processes and services document by an Accreditation Body duly recognised by the International Accreditation Forum ( IAF ). The requirements defined in the ISO / IEC specification requires that the Certification Body document frequencies of surveillance which include factory audits , sampling regimes and subsequent testing of the sampled product . The ISO / IEC document unfortunately does not specify frequencies of audits / inspections / sampling / testing to be imposed on a certificate holder .
Accredited Certification Bodies are then required to clearly define their desired frequencies of surveillance with those frequencies included in a contractual agreement between the two parties . Most foreign based Accredited Certification Bodies define an audit / sampling / test frequency of once per annum while South African
Accredited Bodies generally specify multiple surveillance frequencies per annum . For example , SATAS ( South African Technical Auditing Services ) requires at least three surveillances per annum at the certificate holder , two of which are un-announced product inspections where samples are drawn and tested for compliance . To ensure unbiased test results with no possible conflict of interest , samples are submitted to independent third party SANAS accredited test facilities .
CASE STUDY :
To demonstrate how a SANAS Accredited Certification Body should perform their mandates to both the certificate holder and the end-user , a recent and all too common case study handled by SATAS is explained below :
• SATAS received an application for Certification from a supplier of water conveyance products where compliance to SANS specifications is considered mandatory and moreover , certified by a SANAS Accredited Certification Body .
• The application was that of a South African based company sourcing product directly from a nominated foreign manufacture .
• The certification process includes a full assessment of the manufacturer ’ s documented quality system , production process and quality control systems . Random samples were selected for pre-certification evaluation and subjected to an independent SANAS Accredited test laboratory for full specification testing .
• Certification was eventually granted after a period of eight months as the rectification of product failures took a longer than expected period to solve .
• In this specific instance the frequency of surveillance applicable to the certificate holder was that of one surveillance audit performed at the foreign manufacturing facility and a further two unannounced product inspections per year where inspection / sampling / test regimes are performed at the South African certificate holder ’ s premises .
• The first product inspection was performed three months after date of certification with all the samples successfully achieving the requirements defined in the SANS standard .
12 JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2021 SAAffordHousing saaffordablehousingmag SA Affordable Housing www . saaffordablehousing . co . za