News

11/10/2019

Product Certification in New Zealand
CMI wishes to clarify that the lifting of the suspension relates to the JAS-ANZ accredited, CodeMark Australia, WaterMark and the CertMark Product Certification Scheme. CMI has not applied for CodeMark New Zealand to be added back onto its scope at this point in time and as such cannot offer this service.

In New Zealand CMI can offer the following accredited certification services;

1. CertMark Product Certification Scheme. This scheme is JAS-ANZ accredited and a Type 5 scheme. The relevant standards under this scheme can be found at jas-anz.org/.
2. WaterMark. Although this scheme is an Australian mandatory plumbing scheme it is accepted in NZ as evidence of compliance for plumbing products. Historically, this is of use to NZ manufacturers wishing to sell plumbing product into Australia.

CMI Accreditation Schedule – Issue 27 Dated 26th July 2019.pdf

02/10/2019

CMI is pleased to advise that the suspension of our accreditation has been lifted by JAS-ANZ and that we are once again able to offer our full range of services.

The lifting of our suspension comes with several conditions placed on CMI by JAS-ANZ. CMI has agreed to these conditions and moving forward we will strive to meet these requirements.

One of these conditions will be JAS-ANZ conducting random technical oversite of new certifications issued by CMI on a 3 monthly cycle, as well as reviewing, at random, existing certifications. CMI sees this as a positive initiative and is happy to work with JAS-ANZ in this way moving forward.  

As part of its process for reviewing CMI’s policy and procedures during the suspension period, JAS-ANZ conducted a comprehensive on site 3 day audit of CMI. The audit included JAS-ANZ having their Building Code of Australia Expert in attendance for the 3 days which was a very enlightening experience.

A number of very important changes to CMI’s Policy’s & procedures were agreed upon during the audit which will strengthen the procedures already in place. Consequently, a number of New Policies and Procedures have also been implemented.

Moving forward, any such changes or additions to our policy’s and procedures which affect your certification, will be notified to you during your next scheduled surveillance or Certification activity where you will transition across to CMIs updated documentation, as advised to you previously in CMIs Advisory Notice 08/2019.

Construction site audits

One area that was identified as requiring greater attention was the need for ongoing construction site audit. In particular these are of vital importance for systems that are “Manufactured on site”. By Construction Site Audits we refer to a product or system that is installed on-site and relies on other components to achieve the tested specifications cited on the Certificate of Conformity.

CMI has now put together a Protocol for the determination of Construction Site Audits which confirms it is a requirement that any system which relies on an installation method, that incorporates the application of certain materials to a specific brand, composition, thickness, density/weight et cetera, to achieve tested compliance parameters, requires onsite verification of the installation methodology.

Further to this, the Unrestricted Building Certifier (UBC) and CMI are required to consider the following criteria, at the Evaluation Planning stage, when making a determination on the requirement for a Construction Site Audit.

It should be noted that one or a combination of the following may trigger the requirement for this audit:

Whether the product is applied onsite. If Yes, this will require a site audit.

The risk assessment conducted by CMI at the Application Review stage to determine the ongoing Audit Schedule

The complexity of product’s installation and the skill levels required indicate specialised trade skills

Declaration of product Compliance

CMI has recently advised all of its clients for the need to supply declarations of compliance. Unfortunately, some of the responses we have received have been unacceptable. Declarations of compliance are much more than a letter stating the product complies. As advised in our recent notice 08/2009 there are 3 categories of Certificate Holder;

• Manufacturers
• Manufacturer/Distributor
• Distributor

Each of these categories has different requirements in relation to the products they provide into the marketplace. CMI has prepared a template and will make this available upon request. It is important to note that if your system relies on other components from achieve its compliance, its your responsibility to obtain declarations of compliance from the various manufacturers. This can be done by obtaining specific sheets from the manufacturers.

As a result of the suspension and working with JAS-ANZ on areas that required revision and improvement, CMI are sure that our procedures moving forward, will be more robust and better able to inspire confidence in the marketplace.

CMI would like to thank its valued clients for the tremendous amount of support received during the period of suspension, and thank you all for your patience.

Previous updates – https://certmark.org/articles/2019/07/important-notice/

There has recently been some inaccurate reporting surrounding the reasons for the current suspension of CMI’s accreditation.

CMI has attempted to maintain some distance between it and the press however, in a couple of instances, we see that this has allowed some parties to provide their own ‘interpretation’ of the notices we have published on our website and issued to our valued clients. As a result of this, we have decided to provide clarity to a few of the salient points, where some creative licensing had been applied to them. So:

1. JAS-ANZ identified some issues with CMIs internal documentation, which we have now addressed. JAS-ANZ is now booked in on the 13^th of August to conduct an onsite review to verify the implementations of the changed documents.
2. CMI did NOT base any ACP certifications on testing that was not valid. All four of the ACP certificates, revised and supplied to JAS-ANZ, were peer reviewed by JAS-ANZ’s experts and all were accepted. This includes a review of the Core Combustibility content of all four ACP. The point raised by JAS-ANZ was that the Core Combustibility content testing, conducted by the CSIRO and CETEC, was not covered in either labs accreditation. CMI advised JAS-ANZ that this testing was independent of the claims of compliance and WAS NOT relied upon for the revision and reissue of the four ACP Certifications; rather, it was used to determine the Core combustibility as required by the VBA.
3. JAS-ANZ pointed out to CMI, that our own policy for accepting test reports did not cover the use of testing from Accredited Test Labs without the relevant testing under its scope of accreditation. Remedy requested by JAS-ANZ, CMI to revise our policy and procedure to cover this situation. This has been completed.
4. Why did CMI opt to withdraw from the CodeMark Scheme in NZ? As stated previously, what it mainly came down to was the current uncertainty around the future of CodeMark in NZ, and the subsequent potential risk to our company and the Certificate Holders. CMI will await for either the revised Scheme or Scheme replacement before making a decision to apply to provide Product Certification into New Zealand under the Regulations again. As stated previously, CMI will continue issuing Evaluation Reports which can be used as evidence of conformity against either the NZBC and/or the BCA.

We trust that the above clarifies the situation and ask that any news outlet wishing to ‘quote’ CMI on any of the above, may also provide their readers with a link to this notice.

Kind Regards,

John Thorpe
Chief Executive

Previous updates – https://certmark.org/articles/2019/07/important-notice/

Update 02/10/2019 – Important Notice Update 2

Update 24/07/2019 – Important Notice Update

Update 17/07/2019 – Please see the following link for the latest update. CMI Suspension Update 20190717.pdf

11/07/2019
To our valued clients,

Please be advised that CMI has, this morning, received a notification from JAS-ANZ of a temporary suspension in relation to several minor procedural matters that relate to ISO 17065. JAS-ANZ has provided CMI with a detailed list of six (6) actions to be undertaken in order to have the suspension lifted. CMI was surprised to receive this notification as we are audited regularly by JAS-ANZ, including repeated reviews of the six points raised. That said, we are confident that we can close out the non-conformities in a timely manner.

During this period, CMI will not be able to issue any new certifications. CMI will continue with all Surveillance activities for the Australian schemes; however, should the surveillance result in the recommendation to reissue the certificate, reissuance of the Certificate will not occur until the current matters are resolved. For clients waiting to progress to the 2019 building code under CodeMark Australia, your certification under BCA 2016 Amendment 1 remains valid during the 12 month transition period; however, it is at the discretion of the state or territory authority as to whether they will accept the current CodeMark. It should be noted that CodeMark is only one form of evidence of compliance with the BCA.

CMI wishes to assure all of our clients that current certificates in the marketplace are not affected by the suspension and that CMI will be working diligently to have the suspension lifted as soon as possible. In the interim, CMI will directing all of it resources to the rectification of these issues and ask for your patience during this time. CMI will provide a further update to our clients early next week and request that correspondence be limited to emergencies only. Anything urgent should be directed to office@certmark.org.

John Thorpe
CEO / Director

Further to CertMark Internationals (CMI) notification of the withdrawal of 9 CodeMark Certificates last week, CMI wish to issue the following update.

• Firstly; CMI wishes to advise that the withdrawal of the Certificates in no way implies that any of the products certified do not meet the requirements of the National Construction Code (NCC) as detailed on the certificates.
• Secondly; all construction previously installed with a reliance on the Withdrawn certificates, prior to the date of withdrawal, is to be considered compliant with the requirements of the National Construction Code (NCC) as detailed on the certificates.

CMI is currently undertaking a review of the withdrawn certificates and expects the revised certificates to be lodged with JAS-ANZ for approval end of next week.

In several cases, the Certificate Holders have opted not to renew their certifications, as a result of having moved to replacement paneling systems.  In such cases, as detailed above, any construction previously installed with a reliance on the Withdrawn certificates, prior to the date of withdrawal, is to be considered compliant with the requirements of the National Construction Code (NCC) as detailed on the certificates.