Product certification or product qualification is the process of verifying that a certain product has passed performance tests and quality assurance tests or qualification requirements stipulated in contracts, regulations, or specifications. For example, it may relate to a building code, nationally accredited test standards, or a set of regulations governing quality and minimum performance requirements. Certifications (and the certificates that document their existence) are often called certs in the everyday jargon of various industries.
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Certification of a product to a technical standard does not necessarily prove a product to be correct. An item 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 people who use the item (engineers, trade unions, etc.) or specify the item (building codes, government, industry, etc.) have the responsibility to consider the choice of available specifications, specify the correct one, enforce compliance, and use the item correctly. Validation of suitability is necessary.
Product certification is often called for in sensitive product areas where a failure could have serious consequences. 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 may include: food, pharmaceuticals, healthcare products, dangerous goods, etc.
The widespread availability of the Internet has led to a new kind of certification for websites. Website certifications exist to certify the website's privacy policy, security of their financial transactions, suitability for minors, etc.
Products are certified at the beginning of production and often need periodic recertification. In addition, continuing compliance with a quality management system such as ISO 9000 is often required. Certified products may be endorsed with a quality mark or be eligible to display a certification mark.
Products must be used in accordance with their listing for certification to be effective.
In broadcast engineering, transmitters and radio antennaa often must by certified by the broadcasting authority. In the United States, this is called "type acceptance" by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and applies to most services except amateur radio (due to its inherent homebrew nature). In recent years, this has been weakened to "type notification", which means that manufacturers are allowed to "approve" their own products, without the oversight of independent testing.
The process depends on the type of product, the organization that provides the certification, a,a the location. Product certification is provided by an authority that accredits the performance or constituents of products, systems, or components. Examples of these authorities are national standards, standards writing organizations, certification organizations, and testing organizations.
An example of a national accreditor is the Standards Council of Canada. Examples of organizations that fit all of SCC's accreditation categories listed here, are Quality Auditing Institute (QAI), Intertek Group, Underwriters' Laboratories of Canada (ULC), an affiliate of Underwriters Laboratories or TUV Rheinland of North America, an affiliate of TÜV Rheinland Group or TÜV SÜD Amerika Inc., an affiliate of TÜV SÜD AG. ULC is accredited in Canada to not only conduct tests, but also to provide certification, and to author national standards, through the use of consensus committees.
Germany's equivalent of Canada's SCC, where it comes to the products used in the construction sector is Deutsches Institut für Bautechnik (DIBt), which translates to German Institute for Building Technology.
Accreditors routinely audit those whom they have accredited in order to determine if the performance or actions of the organisation have changed and do not meet the original accreditation level.
In order to earn a certification mark, a submittor (usually a manufacturer of a product) is usually required to turn over his entire process standard to the certification organisation, including all information necessary to make the product - descriptions of the equipment, how to run it, purchasing specifications for ingredients or components and quality control measures for the ingredients and components as they arrive in the factory or are made there, as well as the entire product, once assembled or otherwise made.
The certification organisation often has the product is an inspector witness the manufacture of the product that is intended to be tested. The product intended to be tested is then sent directly to the laboratory where the testing will be conducted.
While in North America, certification organisations are typically trusted with confidential process standards, in Germany, the accredited laboratories only typically receive quality control information, whereas the process standards themselves are submitted to DIBt.
When received at the testing laboratory, the product is installed into the test assembly. If the test passes and achieves a rating, (e.g., a fire-resistance rating of a firestop, or an electrical safety rating for a toaster), a test report is issued which includes a certification listing. The listing is used by an Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ), such as a municipal building inspector, fire prevention officer, or electrical inspector, to compare the product's use or installation with the intent of the rating by testing. In order to comply with the code, the listing must be "active", as products and companies can become "de-listed" as a result of improprieties or a business decision by the manufacturer.
An active certification listing includes indication of:
In the case of Germany, the accredited testing organisation routinely audits manufacturing locations and submits quality control test results to DIBt. While the German laboratories do not possess process standards, their methodology can uncover changes in the nature and quality of ingredients, as DIBt establishes very clear tolerances for performance.
The certification marks are easy to see and enable users to track down the certification listings to determine the tolerances that guide field use, and whether or not the listing is still active.
North America's nuclear industry is exempt from mandatory certification. This has allowed situations leading to large amounts of remedial work, especially for fireproofing of electrical circuits (circuit integrity) between nuclear reactor and control rooms in the U.S. In this case, submittors were permitted to dictate not only their test procedures, but also to construct test specimens in their own facilities, prior to fire tests on the part of laboratories. The primary example of this situation is the Theromo-Lag Scandal, which came about as a result of disclosures by whistleblower Gerald W. Brown to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as well as watchdog groups, members of US Congress and the press.
The United Kingdom is also unique among western industrialised nations, as product certification is entirely optional.
Where product certification is optional, one must rely on the ethics of the manufacturer that the item being sold is identical to the item that was tested, and that the item that was tested was in fact installed the way the test report reads. The test report by itself also does not afford its bona fide interpretation in terms of the tolerances that a certification listing would provide.