What is the definition of Standardization?
Standardization is the activity of establishing, with regard to actual or potential problems, provisions for common and repeated use, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context.
What is the importance of standardization?
Important benefits of standardization are improvement of the suitability of products, process and services for their intended purposes, prevention of barriers to trade and facilitation of technological cooperation.
What is a standard?
A standard is a document approved by a recognized body, such as the NSI, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods, with which compliance is not mandatory. It may also include or deal exclusively with terminology, symbols, packaging, marking or labelling requirements as they apply to a product, process or production method.
Why are standards important?
- Standards make the development, manufacturing and supply of products and services more efficient, safer and cleaner.
- Standards facilitate trade between countries and provide governments with a technical base for health, safety and environmental protection and conformity assessment.
- Business using standards especially, international standards can compete on many markets around the world.
- Standards speed up the disseminations of innovations and their developments into manufacturable and marketable products and provide interoperability of goods.
- Standards serve as catalysts for technology transfer and provide assurance about the quality and reliability of products.
- Machinery and tools used in day to day life including transport, become safer when manufactured according to standards.
What is conformity Assessment?
- Demonstration that specified requirements, relating to a products, process, system, person or body are fulfilled
- Any activity concerned with determining directly or indirectly that relevant requirements are fulfilled.
What is inspection?
Inspection is an activity such as measuring, examining, testing or gauging one or more characteristics of an entity and comparing the results with specified requirements in order to establish whether conformity is achieved for each characteristic.
What is calibration?
Calibration is a set of operation that establishes, under specified conditions, the relationship between values of quantities indicated by a measuring instrument or measuring system, or values represented by a material measure of a reference material, and the corresponding values realized by standards.
What is testing ?
Testing is the process that determines that a product, process or service complies with specified requirements. Examples are tests conducted by NSI Laboratories at the Testing and Inspection Centre in Walvis Bay.
What is the difference between Certification and Accreditation?
Whereas certification is a procedure by which a third party gives written assurance that a product, process or service conforms to specific requirements, accreditation, on the other hand, is a procedure by which an authoritative body gives formal recognition that a body such as a certification body, inspection body or test and calibration laboratory or person is competent to carry out specific tasks.
An example of a certification body is the NSI Certification, and, an internationally recognized national accreditation body (NAB) in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), is the South African National Accreditation System (SANAS). The SADC Accreditation Service (SADCAS) is the multi-economy accreditation body serving those SADC Member States without an own NAB or whose NAB provides a limited scope of accreditation.