Product Certification - International Applications of Product Certifications

International Applications of Product Certifications

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, submitors 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 industrialized nations, as product certification is entirely optional.

In Germany, the accredited testing organizations routinely audit manufacturing locations and submit 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.

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.