IJCA - Volume I - Flipbook - Page 10
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The International Journal of Conformity Assessment
commerce kicks in, the spread
of the supply chain expands
the possibilities of supplies,
creativity, and design options.
So, after the architect’s vision is
engineered to arrive at a system
design that can fulfill functional
needs, a new set of engineers
who need to “build” it come
into the picture. Bombarded
by choices of suppliers and
their claims, they are held back
by budget constraints and
constantly nudged to complete
the work quickly.
In practice, this is a heady mix.
Decisions that are made at the
construction site/project without
the backing of a proven system
can lead to catastrophes.
Proven Systems
The tug of war between creative
differentiation and desiring the
comfort of repeatability has led
to the progress of humanity. Both
have progressed faster in the last
five decades compared to earlier
years. The increasing availability
of devices that measure with
higher accuracy, clubbed with
the evolution of ever-evolving
standards, provides the muchneeded tools to establish and
assess repeatability of desired
results.
Three published standards
that have evolved over the past
decades continue to support
the concept of parity across
countless products and services
and have driven commerce and
economies around the world.
Testing a Product
The root of establishing
repeatability is measurement
and conducting tests. ISO/IEC
17025 (“General requirements for
the competence of testing and
calibration laboratories”) enables
laboratories to demonstrate
that they operate competently
and generate valid results.
This published standard, last
revised in 2017, creates parity
across organizations performing
testing, sampling, or calibration.
The availability and use of this
standard has evolved over the
last four decades and has helped
countless buyers, specifiers,
regulators, and manufacturers.
By providing the tools to measure
consistently, this standard
has enabled better quality and
safety of countless products and
systems evaluated for electrical,
mechanical, chemical, thermal,
and other behaviors.
Figure 2: Typical detail of a cladding system showing the spread of
different materials
2022 | Volume 1, Issue 1
Manufacturing a Product
After establishing the functional
equality between entities testing
products and materials, there was
a need to assess processes that
enable repeatable production of
products (materials and systems).
ISO/IEC 17065 (“Conformity
assessment—Requirements
for bodies certifying products,
processes, and services”) is a
published standard that provides
the equitable tools to evaluate
product conformity. According
to the ISO website, “conformity
assessment is the collective term
for the processes that show a
product meets the requirements
of something, such as a standard,
that is needed in order to
meet a regulation or customer
expectations.” In simple terms,
if the insulation material (e.g.,
mineral wool) needs to prevent
cold or hot temperatures
outdoors from permeating a
building, it needs to be able to
do it all the time, irrespective of
how, when, and where heat/cold
is produced. But manufacturing
requires raw materials that need
to be tested for given parameters
before they are used to make a
product. The manufacturer needs
repeatable processes, trained
manpower, and measuring
instruments that establish the
certainty. A typical thermal
insulation producer needs to
establish the repeatability of
measurement of parameters such
as air permeability, compressive
resistance, corrosion resistance,
water absorption, fire resistance,
and thermal conductivity
Initiated as ISO guide 24 in 1978,
the standard in its current form
provides the basis of establishing
certification programs with
varying levels of severity of
assessing and establishing
assurance of materials that
are bought and sold. Starting
from very basic means where
a factory’s production control
system is audited regularly
(which includes, of course, the
tests conducted for assessing the
assured properties), the stringent
means of assurance goes to
levels where the traceability
of samples to be tested is
established and regular testing is
conducted of randomly selected
products, which are either already
on the market or have reached
the consumer or the construction
site.
Used diligently by governments
and private service providers,
conformity assessment
certification programs use
unique certification markings
on products (such as QR codes
and even RFIDs now in some
cases) and other features to help
buyers track detailed information
of the assured properties and
manufacturing locations.
Over the decades, products
posing a higher safety risk have
been regulated using assessment
mechanisms written using this
standard. This ranges from
government requirements set
for selling water, to medicines, to
local jurisdiction and contractual
requirements for assessing firerated doors in buildings
Installation
A large number of products are
manufactured and then utilized
by consumers, allowing for a
direct evaluation of “value of
money.” Construction is among
the very few industries where
users of procured materials
are not always users of the
end result (the building as an
example). While the properties
of procured materials could be
evaluated using testing and
certification, the assurance of
their performance depends on
correct installation. Just like
products manufactured need
to be independently tested, and
manufacturing processes need
to be audited for certification,
installation assurance comes
from independent inspections.
But how do we establish the
competence or parity?
ISO/IEC 17020 (“Conformity
assessment—Requirements for
the operation of various types of
bodies performing inspection”)
is a conformity assessment
standard that specifies
requirements for the competence
of bodies performing inspections
and for the impartiality and
consistency of their inspection
activities.
Along with several other
supporting standards that
developed through consensus,
the three standards detailed
above—ISO/IEC 17025, ISO/
IEC 17065, and ISO/IEC 17020—
provide parity to the processes
used to establish and assess safe
building envelopes.
UAE Fire and Life Safety
Code of Practice
As a young country ticking
ambitious goals for growth,
specifically in tall buildings, the
UAE’s challenge of establishing
safe building envelopes was
a steep one. Stakeholders of
the fast-paced construction
industry—including contractors,
material suppliers, and installers
across the world—have to be
brought together on a common
and easily assessable process.
The UAE Fire and Life Safety
Code of Practice uses these
three standards, placing
control mechanisms for various
stakeholders involved in the
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realization of the building
envelope or cladding. The publicly
available code also added a
new chapter (18) in the latest
revision to define and detail the
responsibilities of stakeholders,
and elucidates the expectations
of everyone—ranging from
manufacturers to building
occupants. It further defines
the functions and liabilities of
nearly 20 stakeholders including
laboratories and certification and
inspection bodies.
Tier One
Along with defining the specific
test methods for demonstrating
conformity for each material
and system (see Figure 3), the
code defines certification and
listing using ISO/IEC 17065.
The code also uses the related
ISO/IEC 17067 standard
(“Conformity assessment—
Fundamentals of product
certification and guidelines for
product certification schemes”)
to define the severity level of
the certification program. Test
reports used to demonstrate
conformity can only come from
an ISO/IEC 17025-accredited
laboratory. The certification
and listing evidence forms the
basis of applying to the authority
having jurisdiction (respective
civil defense authority) to get
registered as an approved
supplier.
Tier Two
The drawings of a proposed
cladding system, when submitted
for plan approval, need to assure
that only approved suppliers
will be used. An authorized fire
consultant takes ownership of
assessing the existing evidence
of assembly tests performed by
labs accredited (and recognized)
as per ISO/IEC 17025. In case
