Amendment of General Conditions & Regulations for attestation, certification and inspection

Effective January 1, 2018, the amended General Terms and Conditions of SKG-IKOB Certification BV and the Regulations for Attestation Certification and Inspection of SKG-IKOB Certification BV /SKW Certification came into force.

Besides a number of editorial changes, the main reason for the amendment is twofold:

  1. The documents had to be adapted based on the ISO 17020 accreditation standard for Inspection Bodies as well as SKG-IKOB's quality system.
  2. The separate Regulations for Picture Mark Use of SKG-IKOB Certification have been incorporated into the new Regulations for Inspection Certification and Attestation. It has now become a binding appendix and, to avoid ambiguity, has been renamed the SKG-IKOB Certification Internal Regulations for Use of Image Marks.

Re 1. Inspection certification based on ISO 17020

Inspection certification under this standard has one essential difference from the other forms of accreditation:

Inspection certificate: A quality declaration issued once in accordance with an assessment basis and the provisions of the Regulations for Attestation, Certification and Inspection of SKG-IKOB/SKW, stating that the properties of (a part of) a building or building component at the time of inspection were in accordance with the provisions of the assessment basis.

This has a number of implications. The most important is:

  • That not a certification manager makes the certification decision but in the case of inspection certification, the inspector who performed the inspection of the product decides on certification of the product.
  • The certificate that is issued certifies that at the time of inspection, the product complied. Changes to that product, even if theoretically only one second later than the inspection, automatically invalidate the certificate. Then a valid certificate requires a new inspection.
  • This means that the inspectors must be completely independent and therefore more stringent requirements are set for them than for system certification. This also applies to the impartiality analysis carried out annually by the Commity Safeguarding Impartiality (CSI).
    Where necessary, the General Terms and Conditions and the Regulations have been amended accordingly.

Re 2. SKG-IKOB Certification BV Statutory Regulations for Use of Trademarks, formerly Statutory Regulations for Use of Trademarks.

This document now forms an integral part of the certification, attestation or approval agreement between SKG-IKOB Certification / SKW Certification and the holder of the attestation, certificate or quality declaration.

Fixed include :

  • The holder of the quality statement may use the seal/logo on letterhead, brochures, website and other promotional materials. Misuse of the hallmark will lead to suspension or withdrawal of the quality declaration. The use of the hallmark/logo must be stopped immediately by the holder, at the moment the quality declaration, for whatever reason, loses its validity.
  • The old logos used with the SKG-IKOB logotype may be used until 31-12-2018. After that date, only the logos as shown on the SKG-IKOB Certification website may be used.
  • A holder of a KOMO quality declaration for a product shall affix the KOMO mark to the relevant products, packaging and/or documents in a manner indicated in the relevant quality declaration.
  • A certificate holder with a valid KOMO certificate is not permitted to apply the KOMO mark to his products, packaging and/or documents.
  • For accredited schemes for which the certificate holder is certified, one may also use the Council for Accreditation's mark in the documentation, on letterhead and/or on the website.
  • It is not permitted to apply the RvA-Accreditation mark to products or their packaging. When using the RvA-Accreditation mark, this must always be placed within a frame with the SKG-IKOB/SKW mark and KOMO mark and provided with the relevant applicable text as formulated in the Internal Regulations. 

Finally, there are changes regarding liability (Article 9 regulations) and publicity.

Note: This is not an exhaustive list of changes. For this, please refer to the 01-01-2018 documents.

Download here our new General Terms and Conditions / Regulations for Attestation, Certification and Inspection dated 01-01-2018.