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Components in office furniture: Product Approval or Certification?

Almost every office in the northern hemisphere has one or more of them; those little rectangular panels containing a row of power sockets that usually sit in, on or over your desk. They are known as ‘Office Electrical Power and Data Distribution systems’ – a fairly grand name for something most of us take for granted. Yet it is their safety and reliability that helps to keep all of the electronic equipment connected through them to the mains power, working and safe.

Those responsible for the specification, design and build of workstations involving electrical equipment in the UK have a legal obligation to ensure that they are safe under The Electricity at Work Regulations (1989). Equipment used in the build must meet the electrical standards as specified in BS 6396 as part of the compliance of the workstation overall, and must be of a suitable rating for the anticipated use.

Therefore these professionals must select products to use in workstation build that they know to be safe, or face the potential liability for damage to people or property that a failure may bring. Many specifiers already have a degree of trust in the safety of their favoured brands but new, lesser-known, cheaper products from some overseas manufacturers are threatening to overturn these allegiances as specifiers aim to increase their profit margins. If supplying an unsafe product can potentially cost a specifier an expensive lawsuit, they need to make sure that they are opting to use safe and reliable products – wherever they are sourced from.

BS 1363-2 & BS 5733

Manufacturers in or constructing for the UK may be confused on the most suitable Standard for some components (i.e. Socket-outlets) for their desk power products, but two standards are to be considered. BS 1363-2 “Part 2: Specification for 13 A switched and unswitched socket-outlets” and BS 5733 “General requirements for electrical accessories”. The scope of BS 1363-2 does not allow innovations in socket-outlets in an age where electronics are included in more and more applications. Alternatively BS 5733 allows manufacturers to innovate but most of all allows their products to be tested to one traceable standard.

How can specifiers ensure that electrical office furniture is safe and remains safe?

Two types of safety indicator are currently used within the market, Type Test Certification and Product Approval. The first solution requires the equipment to be successfully tested against BS 1363-2 or BS 5733. The product must successfully complete compliance tests to every aspect of the Standard for an appropriate certificate to be issued. However, certification of test work in this way only provides a ‘safety snapshot’ in time. The supply chain can only assume that all subsequent products of the same model and make, created using the same materials, in the same production facilities, to the same specification, using the same processes, should theoretically perform the same as the tested sample.

However, there are risks in this assumption. The manufacturer could have legitimately changed suppliers for one of the components, and could be producing a product that appears to be exactly the same as the one tested but that has in reality, a different set of performance characteristics. (i.e. what if the socket-outlet’s shutter is staying open after only a few plug insertions?). A specifier will have to either trust their suppliers implicitly regarding the test regime and ‘take their word for it’ or actually request a copy of the test reports and certificate to make absolutely sure that a product has undergone any of the appropriate testing – and securing that material, of course, takes time.

There is however, a more robust alternative to simple type testing. Product Approval for such socket panels can provide ongoing piece of mind to the supply chain. It combines certified test work, with factory inspections for the location of manufacture and regular product surveillance of random samples, as well as continuing review and assessment of all product modifications and material changes – for the life of the approval. It reassures the specifiers, installers and end-users that a product has been assessed by safety experts and is considered to be safe, in line with relevant national and international standards. It also helps the manufacturer to differentiate themselves from their competitors who often cannot demonstrate an ongoing commitment to safety.

It is not only to the supply chain that Product Approval brings greater confidence. As many manufacturers source components for their final products from overseas and are sometimes uncertain of the quality and safety of those components, they have found that the quickest way of both demonstrating the safety of their products to their potential clients and to check the ongoing performance of a component in their equipment, is to secure a third party certification mark which they can apply to their finished products.

Almost all manufacturers conduct test work on their products. Some have that test work certified, some don’t, some have their products approved by a third party some don’t. It is ultimately the choice of the specifiers, builders and purchasers what forms of safety assurance they accept, but both the specifier and the manufacturer take legal responsibility for the safety of the equipment they supply.

If the manufacturers and specifiers are aware of the different types of product safety assessment products on offer and what the implications of each of these are, they will be able to make informed decisions about the products they manufacture and select - protecting themselves from potentially unsafe products and the liability that they can bring.

Email: nsessions@astabeab.com