What's the difference? Jargon explained!

Specifiers, purchasers and others involved with the selection of building products will be offered many different types of Certificates and reports by manufacturers wishing to secure their business.

We thought it would be useful to explain what some of the terms that are used actually mean and how they may be of use to you, or not.

First of all, there are many different types of Certificates:

Agrément Certificates

Test Reports

Assessment Reports

Product Certification

Management Systems Certification

CE Marking

Production Control

Prototype Assessment 

Agrément Certificates – offered exclusively by the BBA in the UK

Agrément Certificates are the Gold Standard of product  or system approvals: a rigorous and thorough examination of the product, its manufacture and installation – much more than a simple statement at one point of time. Agrément Certificate holders are subject to production surveillance throughout the life of their Certificate and you can always be sure that you will get the BBA-agreed specification of product. For more information on Approvals, click here. 

Test reports – offered by the BBA and others

Test reports simply state that on a particular day a sample of product was tested and found to have performed as described. Readers need to satisfy themselves that the product is the representative of the one they are now being offered, and ,assuming that it is the same, the component materials and method of production have not changed and that the laboratory that performed the test was qualified and independent – Our recommendation is to demand that the test report is recent, traceable and was issued from a UKAS accredited laboratory.

Assessment Reports – offered only by the BBA

An Assessment Report is the result of an assessment of particular properties of a product or system. It can be the precursor to an Agrément Certificate but is not in itself equivalent to one. It may well identify particular areas of performance that would need to be investigated further if the product was to go on to be assessed further for an Agrément Certificate or it may be enough in itself for the manufacturers to back up some claims for the performance of their product. An Assessment Report does not confirm that a product is fit for purpose. The BBA also offers Development Appraisal as part of its Assessment Report suite. These may be used to by manufacturers to overcome questions regarding product performance by customers  but, like all Assessment Reports, they are not equivalent to Agrément  Certificates.

Product Certification – offered by the BBA and others

This type of certificate can relate to testing and assessment to standards or other normative documents – Please note Agrément Certificates are NOT Product Certification

In theory Product Certification can be relied upon but as in most things the devil here is in the detail.

Firstly consider the standard against which conformance has been certified:

(1)  Is it a nationally recognised standard? Some standards are written by associations or other groups and may be designed more to set base levels of performance than to prove fitness for purpose.

(2)  Does the scope of the standard cover how you are going to use the product? Make sure that you carefully read the scope of the Product Certificate standard and where it refers only to a Standard by name you must obtain a copy and carefully read the scope. You may find that the product does conform but the standard is referring to a very different application.

(3)  Does the standard cover all the features of the product important to you? Unfortunately commercial pressures exerted by major players can bias the content of a standard in their favour. Make sure you carefully read the standard to ensure that the features important to you are covered.

(4)  In the UK any organisation can in theory issue a product certificate but if an organisation is not accredited by UKAS the certificate may not be all you think it is. We recommend you check to ensure that the certificate bears the UKAS tick and crown to be sure that such an organisation is both competent and independent.

Management Systems Certification – offered by the BBA and others

Quality assurance is a good thing but it should not be assumed that a  QA (Quality Assurance) Management System will say anything about the fitness for purpose of any product made under such a system . Instead it confirms that the product is made in a controlled environment that is capable of delivering a product that meets the specification set out by the manufacturer or in some cases to meet contractual requirements specified by the customer.

Such certification is useful when specifying service providers, when no other endorsment is available, or when you have the knowledge, influence and time to specify exactly what you want from the product.

CE Marking – offered by the BBA and others

CE Marking was introduced to the building products sector via the EU’s Construction          Products Directive, which introduced both European Technical Approvals (ETA) and harmonized European Standards as means towards CE Marking.

Nowadays many British Standards are European in origin, and these are transposed into BSENs in the UK by BSI. Some of these ENs are harmonised meaning that they can allow the manufacturer to apply CE Marking. Depending on the level of safety criticality relating to the product, e.g. structural products – safety-critical, decorative products – not (usually) safety critical, CE marking may involve different types of Attestation of Conformity. For safety-critical products, this will usually involve testing, inspection and certification by a third-party body. For non-safety critical products, the CE Mark will usually involve a manufacturer’s declaration only, with no third party involvement.

The BBA can offer an EU Certificate of Conformity - This is Product Certification and may be used where a product can be shown to comply with the requirements of either an ETA or a harmonised European Standard, where the Attestation of Conformity Level has been set at 1 or 1+. In these cases there is a requirement for a Notified Body to ratify some aspect of the product’s performance, usually relating to fire (as opposed to the manufacturer taking responsibly for all aspects of the product’s performance as is the case for other Attestation of Conformity levels). It will be necessary for the manufacturer to confirm to the BBA that all other requirements of the ETA or Standard have been met, including the factory production control; this may involve testing, either at the BBA or externally.

It is also important to note that some products in the UK market and carrying the CE Mark are doing so in compliance with another EU Directive, such as the Electromagnetic Compliance Directive, covering electrical equipment. Such equipment is often used on boilers and hot water storage systems. CE Marking in these cases does not show compliance with the Construction Products Directive.

Production Control – offered by the BBA and others

This is the permanent internal control of production exercised by a manufacturer.

The purpose of Production Control is to ensure that products placed on the market conform to a technical specification, for example, that associated with an Agrément Certificate, or Certificate of Product Conformity.

Production Control comprises operational techniques and all measures necessary to maintain and to regulate the quality of the product. It comprises inspections and tests and the utilisation of their results, with regard to equipment, basic materials and constituents, processes of manufacturing, and the product itself, taking into account the requirements of the technical specification. As part of this the manufacturer will need to have documented in a systematic manner all policies and procedures associated with the product, to ensure that the required product characteristics are achieved and that the effective operation of the Production Control system can be checked. The controls that BBA expect to be in place are contained within the DataSheet “BBA Quality Control Specification” which is the document used by assessors during the Assessment of Production.

In the Construction Products Directive (CPD) this procedure is referred to as Factory Production Control (FPC).

Prototype Assessment – offered only by the BBA

This is a specific type of Assessment Report designed to reassure users on the likely performance of prototype products at the site validation stage. It is appropriate where the client has a product for a defined use that has reached a point where the formulation / specification has been fixed, but is not yet in production. It offers the manufacturer an opportunity to have the bulk of the work required for a full Agrément Certificate carried out prior to the formal launch and so to minimise delays in obtaining this Approval.

A Prototype Assessment will also be appropriate for a novel concept, for which the BBA has no direct or related experience and for which no site evidence exists. In this case, it may not be possible for the BBA to have complete confidence in the results of an assessment carried out entirely in the laboratory, and it may be necessary to gain some real world experience before an Agrément Certificate is possible.

The exact content of the work required will vary by product but may include the assessment of external data (such as fire or structural reports), manufacturers data which may have to be supported by BBA testing and the assessment of regulatory requirements. In most cases, following the issue of a Prototype Assessment, it is likely that only the assessment of factory production control and practicality of installation on site will be necessary in order to issue a full Agrément Certificate.