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Mitigate Risk With Third Party Certification

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By Engaged Expert

Peter Barker

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Peter is a Technical Policy Manager working for many years in the field of passive fire protection, specializing in leading and supporting engineers producing engineering assessments of fire resisting construction products.

Third party certification is conducted by independent, UKAS-accredited certification bodies such as BM TRADA. 

 

At BM TRADA we provide third party certification services to help mitigate risk in an increasingly complex world, giving building product manufacturers the peace of mind to know that the products they offer and their facilities are compliant and safe. But what exactly does third party certification involve? 

 

What is Third Party Certification? 

Third party certification simply means that a business is checked by an independent expert (third party) to ensure it meets specific quality standards for manufacturing, installation and maintenance services. This ensures architects, specifiers, contractors, owners and facilities managers can be confident products will perform as required. Usually, this will involve testing a product in extreme scenarios and over an extended period of time.  Ensuring life safety in buildings in terms of fire prevention is of paramount importance. Recent developments in the built environment sector, such as the Fire Safety Act 2021, which amended the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order for England and Wales, have highlighted the need for confidence in the performance of fire safety products and equipment within a building, and being able to identify and demonstrate that performance.  Third party certification ensures that manufacturers have documented product specifications, installation instructions, and a factory production control system is in place.

 

Benefits of Third Party Certification

 Gaining third party certification not only helps protect those using performance critical products, it also offers important benefits for manufacturers, which include:

• Instilling confidence in a performance critical product or service

• Assuring consistency and quality

• Reducing the risk of product failure

• Increasing life safety

• Reducing risk of loss and business disruption

• Demonstrating due diligence to customers

• Improving business and brand reputation

• Providing traceability throughout supply chain 

 

BM TRADA Q-Mark – Demonstrating Compliance 

What is Q-Mark? The BM TRADA Q-Mark is our quality mark awarded to manufacturers, identifying them as having been assessed against specified performance levels through independent accredited tests.  Q-Mark also shows that every product manufactured will offer the same level of performance through integration with an approved quality management scheme. Continuous performance and production are also checked through regular audit testing and inspections. 

 

Working with BM TRADA 

We are a globally recognized, highly respected and fully accredited certification provider, which means certification by us is readily accepted in the industry. We offer 30 years’ experience, deep technical knowledge and an industry leading standard of service with thousands of certified customers in more than 70 countries. Our auditors are selected for their industry experience, local knowledge and ability to work collaboratively alongside our clients. We are a division of Element Materials Technology, one of the fastest growing and a top 10 global Testing, Inspection and Certification businesses. 

 

 Mitigating risk in manufacturing creates a safer environment for everyone. Gaining third party certification demonstrates that manufacturers are serious about the safety and compliance of their products and the peace of mind that third party certification affords.   To find out more about how to become gain the Q-Mark certification, please contact us

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