A blog written by the BBA

When the British Board of Agrément was created in in 1966, we don’t suspect that the original leadership team knew quite how big the demand of 3rd party certification, testing, audit & inspection would be 55 years later. In fact, it was the introduction of the first Audit & Inspection service in the 1980s that the business realised a demand not just for certification, but for services around the implementation, installation, continuous improvement and long-term maintenance of those products.

Schemes that verify skill and technical capability

The BBA introduced its first Installer Scheme over 10 years ago, when a mechanism was required to verify installation of certified products, and to support manufacturers’ drive for product quality; recognising that quality didn’t lie only in the production of the product, but in the way that product was expected to be installed and maintained, long after it left the factory production line.

Since then, over 400 installers have been approved by the BBA, and we conduct over 7,000 installer inspections annually. Approved Installer Schemes were created to enable installers to demonstrate their capability, expertise and service integrity in the market in working with quality products. And while we realise that no two products are the same, every scheme was set up and designed for the relevant installer; working with cavity and external wall insulation installers, heating professionals, ventilation specialists and renewables installers to name just a few.

Certificate maintenance and quality audits that support ongoing credibility performance

Things change; people leave businesses, processes change and a new generation of skilled construction workers will always be needed, this mean training is required on a continuous basis. Quite often, detail can be lost in the handover of certain skills which can sometimes result in unnecessary knock-on downtime or product development – again, another reason for robust training and auditing to exist.

When designing the Agrément Certification process, we recognised that certification was anything but a one-off activity. In the world of our customers, things never stop evolving. In our market, new challenges always present themselves; which is why we needed a way to ensure that the credibility of certification remained constant; while also being flexible enough to adapt to those changes, supporting client changes as best we can, while not compromising the credibility of the certified product and the market expectation that accompanies this.

Our maintenance schedule means that through bi-annual surveillance visits at the manufacturing site of certified products (equaling 2,000 factory visits per year) and 3-year reviews (technical checks on the certificate itself), we work with our clients to take into account any personnel, process, production or product changes that may affect their product certificate.

In the Construction world, training and recruitment extends way beyond the ability to perform a single job. Quite often, as in the case of 3rd party certification, it requires agility and flexibility around changing market influences that affect critical business developments and product placement; and that’s why we look at product certification as a holistic process.

Find out more about the BBA Approved Installer Schemes here.