Voluntary certification of products

Courtesy: Voluntary certification of products

Product certification or product qualification is the process of certifying that a certain product has passed performance tests and quality assurance tests, and meets qualification criteria stipulated in contracts, regulations, or specifications (sometimes called “certification schemes” in the product certification industry).

Most product certification bodies (or product certifiers) are accredited to or aligned with ISO/IEC 17065 Conformity assessment — Requirements for bodies certifying products, processes and services (previously ISO/IEC Guide 65:1996) an international standard for ensuring competence in those organizations performing product, process and service certifications. The organizations that perform this accreditation are called Accreditation Bodies, and they themselves are assessed by international peers against the ISO 17011 standard. In India Product certification is being monitored by BUREAU OF INDIAN STANDARDS.

Examples of some certification schemes include the Safety Equipment Institute for protective headgear, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Telecommunication Certification Body (TCB) program for radio communication devices, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star program, the International Commission on the Rules for the Approval of Electrical Equipment Product Safety Certification Body Scheme (IEECE CB Scheme), MAS (Materials Analytical Services) Certified Green IEQ program, and the Greenguard Environmental Institute Indoor Air Quality program. Certification schemes are typically written to include both the performance test methods that the product must be tested to, as well as the criteria that the product must meet to become Certified.

Certifications (and the certificates that document their existence) are often called “certs” in the everyday jargon of various industries.

A product might be verified to comply with a specification or stamped with a specification number. This does not, by itself, indicate that the item is fit for any particular use. The person or group of persons who own the certification scheme (i.e., engineers, trade unions, building code writers, government, industry, etc.) have the responsibility to consider the choice of available specifications, choose the correct ones, set qualification limits, and enforce compliance with those limits. The end users of the product have the responsibility to use the item correctly. Products must be used in accordance with their listing for certification to be effective.

Product certification is often required in sensitive industry and marketplace areas where a failure could have serious consequences, such as negatively affecting the health and welfare of the people or person using that product. For example, certification is stringent in aerospace applications, since the demands for low weight tend to lead to high stress on components, requiring appropriate metallurgy and accuracy in manufacturing. Other sensitive product area examples include food, pharmaceuticals, healthcare products, dangerous goods, electrical equipments and products that have RF emissions such as computers and cellular telephones.

The process for certification of a product is generally summed up in four steps:

• Application (including testing of the product)
• Evaluation (does the test data indicate that the product meets qualification criteria)
• Decision (does a second review of the product application concur with the Evaluation)
• Surveillance (does the product in the marketplace continue to meet qualification criteria)
• In many instances, prior to applying for certification, a product supplier will send a product to a testing laboratory (some certification schemes require the product to be sent out for testing by the product certifier instead). When the product to be certified is received at the testing laboratory, it is tested in accordance with the laboratory’s internal procedures and with the methods listed in the test standards specified by the certification scheme. The resulting data collected by the testing laboratory, and is then forwarded either back to the manufacturer, or directly to the product certifier.
• The product certifier then reviews the product supplier’s application information, including the testing data. If the certifier’s evaluation concludes that the test data shows that the product meets all required criteria as listed in the certification scheme, and the decision maker(s) of the product certifier concur with the evaluation, then the product is deemed “certified” and is listed in a directory that the Product certifier is required to keep. ISO Guide 65 requires that the final decision to grant or not grant certification be made only by a person or group of persons not involved in the evaluation of the product.
• Products often need periodic recertification, also known as surveillance. This requirement is typically identified within the certification scheme that the product is certified to. Certification bodies may require product suppliers to perform some sort of surveillance activity, such as pulling sample products from the marketplace for testing, in order to maintain their “listed” or “certified” status. Other examples of Surveillance activities include surprise audits of the manufacturing plant, supervision of the manufacturing and/or testing process, or a simple paperwork submittal from the supplier to the product certifier to ensure that the certified product has not changed. Other causes for recertification may include complaints issued against the product’s functionality, which would require removal from the marketplace, and expiration of the original certification. These lists of examples are by no means all inclusive.
• Some certification schemes, or the product certifiers that operate those Schemes, may require that the product supplier operate a Quality Management System registered to ISO 9000, or that the testing be performed by a laboratory accredited to ISO 17025. The decision to set these requirements is most often made by the person or group which owns the Certification Scheme.