A Test Report Covers a Model, Not a Range

There is a sentence that appears on hardware websites everywhere, and it is doing more work than it looks: "CE certified", "EN 1125 approved", "tested to ANSI Grade 1". Read as a claim about a company it sounds like a credential. Read as a claim about a product it is unfinished, because certification does not attach to companies or to ranges. It attaches to the specific configuration that went into the test rig.

Our own documents are a good illustration, so here they are with their scope stated. An EN 1125 report on panic exit devices operated by a horizontal bar, issued by Intertek Testing Services Shenzhen Ltd., Guangzhou Branch, reference 130722068GZU-001, 7 November 2013 — it covers model KD070/30-290. A tubular door lock durability test from the same laboratory, reference 140306043GZU-001, 28 April 2014 — it covers 607 SS ET. A CE Certificate of Conformity to EN 1125:2008 from CELAB in Italy, 2010, covering the panic exit device series.

Notice what that list does not say. It does not say every panic device we make is EN 1125 tested. It does not say the 607 family is durability tested — it says one member of it is, in stainless steel, in the ET function. Change the finish, change the function suffix, change the backset, and you have changed the product the report describes, sometimes trivially and sometimes not. Which of those changes matter is a question for the laboratory and the standard, not for a salesperson.

This is also why the dates matter and why we print them. A 2013 report is a real report; it is also thirteen years old, and standards get revised. If a project needs current evidence against the current edition of a standard, the honest answer is that a re-test is required, and the useful answer tells you that before the order rather than after the inspector asks.

The related distinction that catches people is between a test report and a certificate. A report is a laboratory's record of what happened to a sample: this device, these cycles, this result. A certificate of conformity is a body attesting that a product meets a standard, usually with an ongoing factory-production-control obligation behind it. They are different instruments with different weight, and "we have the paperwork" collapses the difference in a way that only helps the seller.

Separately from the product documents, our quality management system has been certified to ISO 9001 since 2002. That is a real and useful thing, and it is worth being precise about what it means: ISO 9001 says the factory has a documented, audited process for doing what it says it does. It is not a performance rating for any product. A factory can hold ISO 9001 and ship a lock that was never tested to anything, entirely consistently.

We publish the test documents' facts — title, issuer, reference number, issue date and the exact model covered — rather than the scans themselves, because the reports are the issuing laboratory's to distribute and republishing somebody else's document is not ours to do. If your specification needs the document in hand, ask and we will arrange it through the proper route. What is on our certifications page is everything you need to verify it exists and to see precisely how far it reaches.

The practical upshot for anyone specifying: ask for the report that covers the model number you are actually buying, in the configuration you are actually buying it in, and read the scope line before the headline. If a supplier answers that question with a family name instead of a model number, that is the answer. Third-party inspection before shipment is welcome here and does not need negotiating — name the inspector and we will book the date.