Dame Judith Hackitt’s call for changes in product certification is supported by the steel reinforcement sector, says Lee Brankley of CARES.
Dame Judith Hackitt’s warning at November’s CIOB lecture about independent assurance for construction products was not new.
In the same lecture 12 months earlier, Paul Morrell highlighted this point – yet there has been little or no progress towards a new regulatory framework.
Testing and assurance must be independent and the “perceived obstacle around CE markings” must be removed, said Hackitt. All points with which CARES concurs – and which we are talking about directly to ministers in the coming days.
But we cannot bring about change on our own. Others who share Hackitt’s goal of creating “a robust new regime for product regulation” can help by acknowledging that we are in a digital age; paper in construction, particularly in product certification, is no longer a viable means of providing the assurance which comes from a secure digital process.
Even the United Nations has now stepped in to sound the death knell for the “anomalies” or “data errors” that plague paper-based formats. A recent report by the UN’s Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business says digital data-based solutions are the answer, giving full traceability and product provenance.
Digital ecosystem
This is the route we have taken with CARES Cloud. We now have a digital ecosystem giving full product provenance from steelmaking through to fabrication and on to site delivery. It is now possible, for example, to see the full back story of each batch of rebar with just a smartphone swipe.
HS2 is taking advantage of this technology, and other responsible clients can play a role in driving positive change – those who share the goal of traceable outcomes for end users. Critical when products on which their lives may one day depend are hidden from view, once the concrete is poured and that final bridge span slots into place.
Some remain resistant to change, yet this digital approach is fundamental to achieving the changes called for on product regulation in the Grenfell Inquiry report.
When CARES was set up over 40 years ago, it was against a background of a very different UK steel industry. Now we work with global supply chains and changing attitudes to regulation. Some, such as regulators in the UAE, have now mandated independent digital assurance for reinforcing steels on the statute book. Hong Kong and Singapore are set to follow suit.
They have taken the leap to digital in pursuit of precisely the same clarity and rigour Morrell and Hackitt advocate.
Lee Brankley is CEO of the Certification Authority for Reinforcing Steels (CARES) which certifies products in over 100 steel mills globally.
