The majority of people that I have come across – including me – believe that a test certificate for a product is something that can be relied upon. Once you have it, it can be safely filed away and the box marked ‘due dilligence’ can be ticked – job done!
I have recently learned that this simply isn’t true – or at least its not necessarily true.
We have a commitment to testing in the UK. We believe that whilst it may be more expensive in the short term, in the long run it pays dividends. A recent issue proved to us how easy it is to come unstuck.
We have made some improvements to one of our products. Before we make the product available we decided to get it tested at ETS Ltd, to get UK certification. So far, so good – we thought.
The testing process was fairly straight forward - production samples were sent to the test centre together with the light fittings that would be needed for testing. We then spent a day watching the testing take place and trying not to ask too many stupid questions.
At the end of the days testing, feeling confident, we ventured the opinion that the testing was virtually complete so we needn’t think about compliance until the next product changes were introduced later in 2011.
That’s when the managing director of the testing company – George Vassilla - asked a simple and fairly obvious question that we hadn’t even thought about. How would we be certain that the production products were always the same as those produced for the tests?
George went on to explain that in his experience it was not unusual for the production run to differ from the production samples used for testing. Often causing the production products to fail the tests that they were supposed to pass.
George’s advice was clear – set up your quality control process and procedures to ensure that the production runs match the samples produced for testing.
As you can imagine – this was quite a revelation. Still feeling a little skeptical – after all, that sort of thing wouldn’t happen to us, surely, we decided to put George’s theory to the test.
We asked George and his team to test a product from a reputable company that has a full range of test certificates.
An hour and three clear test fails later- and Georg had proved his point.
The lesson we have learned is to take nothing for granted. We believe we have a testing process and procedure in place that ensures the highest standards for our products.
Welcome to our blog
1
