Product certification

Product certification or product qualification is the process of certifying that a certain product has passed performance and quality assurance tests or qualification requirements stipulated in regulations such as a building code and nationally accredited test standards, or that it complies with a set of regulations governing quality and minimum performance requirements.

Certification of products may indicate their established suitability for a specified purpose (e.g. a computer system might be certified as being fully compatible with a large software package). Products, once certified, may be endorsed with a quality mark or be eligible to display a certification mark. Products must be used in accordance with their listing in order to perform as intended.

Process of certification. Everything starts with a national authority that can accredit the following:

- national standards

- standards writing organizations

- certification organizations

- testing organizations

An example of a national accreditor is the Standards Council of Canada.

Accreditors routinely audit those whom they have accredited, meaning that the maintenance of the accreditation level such an organization has achieved must continue, in theory, to be earned. The idea is that there is documented compliance on the part of accredited organizations to do what they are supposed to do. Test reports that are only based on testing, and not on certification, are done for the interests of the submitter, but are not used to comply with code requirements.

Accredited Certification Organizations: Earning a certification mark involves an entirely different regime. First of all, a submitter (usually a manufacturer of a product) is required to turn over his entire process standard to the certification organization. This includes all information necessary to make the product, including 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. With a process standard, one has all required knowledge about how to manufacture the product. This document in hand, the certification organization dispatches an inspector or an engineer to witness the manufacture of the product that is intended to be tested.

The product intended to be tested is packaged ready for transit, officially sealed and then sent directly to the laboratory where the testing will be conducted in accordance with the nationally accredited standard.

Once the product has landed in the laboratory, the seal that was previously applied by the inspector is officially broken and assembly of the item in a test rig may commence. This is a crucial phase. Certifiers must observe the construction of test specimens to avoid any possible cheating.

If the test passes and achieves a rating, (e.g., a fire-resistance rating of a fire-stop, 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.