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Here Cesar Certini, owner of CERMAC Srl – an Italian testing machine manufacturer – focuses on the EN 10204 standard and how it helps regulate test and controls when ascertaining the conformity of products.

It is clear how important tests and controls are in our field to ascertain the conformity of products. Equally important is how these are made available to customers or bodies that need to know or verify the results obtained, which is why a certificate must be issued.

EN 10204 is the standard that used to establish the different types of certificates and what are the methods that regulate them. This is a general standard that also involves non-metallic products.

The EN 10204 standard contemplates two kinds of control, the first of which is non-specific inspection. This is carried out by the manufacturer in accordance with his own procedures to assess whether products defined by the same product specification, and made by the same manufacturing process, are in compliance with the requirements of the order or not. The products inspected are not necessarily the products actually supplied.

The other kind of control is specific inspection, which is carried out before delivery, in accordance with the product specification, on the products to be supplied or on the test units of which the supplied products are part – in order to verify that these products are in compliance with the order requirements.

The EN10204 standard also provides four certificates to make it clear what type of control has been used:

• Certificate 2.1: A document in which the manufacturer declares that the products supplied are in compliance with the requirements of the order, without inclusion of test results.
• Certificate 2.2: A document in which the manufacturer declares that the products supplied are in compliance with the requirements of the order, without inclusion of test results or including test results based on non-specific control. The values ​​expressed on the certificate are not necessarily obtained from tests carried out on the material sold, but may derive from tests carried out on similar materials.
• Certificate 3.1: This document issued by the manufacturer in which it declares that the products supplied are in compliance with the requirements of the order and in which it supplies test results carried out on the product sold. On the 3.1 certificate it is also possible to report relevant test results obtained from the specific control on the primary or incoming products it uses. These results can be reported if they are not changed by subsequent operations, such as the chemical analysis of the casting – which is certified by the steel mill that produced the raw material.
• Certificate 3.2: This document is prepared by both the manufacturer’s authorised inspection representative, independent of the manufacturing department, and either the purchaser’s authorised inspection representative or the inspector designated by the official regulations in which they declare that the products supplied are in compliance with the requirements of the order and in which test results are supplied.

These certificates can be issued by two parts. The first one is the manufacturer, or the organisation that produces the products in accordance with the order requirements and the properties specified in the reference product specification. The second is the intermediary organisation, which is supplied by the manufactures and which then in turn supplies them without further processing or after processing without changing the properties specified in the purchase order and referenced product specification.

The certificate should not be trivialised, because, as we have seen, it must report well-defined data and results and represents the document that guarantees compliance with the order.

This document must be issued correctly, without errors and omissions and generally must be recorded and kept for at least 10 years.

In order to manage everything, it is clear that it is necessary to use appropriate software.

That is why CERMAC is able to create customised software for the management of certificates, with the possibility of creating a direct interface with the testing machines and with the management systems already in place. In order to reduce data entry and consequently the possibility of mistake. The software can be equipped with control tools capable of giving an alert in case of mechanical or chemical values ​​that are not in compliance with the standards or customer specifications.