Previously, building fire codes in many nations only required fire safety devices such as sprinklers and fire barriers to be certified using ISO standards. Many national standards bodies and industry stakeholders have initiated activities to require certification of the complete fire safety design with ISO standards. ISO has recently published training material that can assist such activities.
The training material can be retrieved from the ISO website in the section on UNDERSTANDING KEY ELEMENTS. The training material is comprehensive and addresses the broad topic of conformity assessment. A specific set of training slides that addresses 3rd party certification in the set is entitled, "Technicals reports ISO/IEC TR 17026 - ISO/IEC TR 17028 -ISO/IEC TR 17032— Examples of a scheme for the certification of products/services/processes."
There is no copyright of the training material by ISO, anyone is welcome to use the material.
Considerations for certifying
fire safety designs
Third party certification is a resource intensive and expensive process, and therefore should only be used considering the risk to public health and safety, or economic loss. Fires in building complexes with many residents, large industrial facilities and nuclear power plants can lead to devastating results.
It is vital that fire safety designs in such facilities be designed based on robust international standards, and verified and validated by an independent and impartial 3rd party. This is particularly true when engineering methods are used as a substitute for conservative and time-tested fire codes.
The engineering methods used should be verified and validated, and subsequently certified by an independent and impartial body. International standards are now available for such applications.
This newsletter from Deytec, Inc. is published to inform subscribers of developments in the field of fire safety.
