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Ensuring quality, safety and performance of products often starts with developing and testing them according to relevant standards. Certifications and labels rely on these standards to assure customers of a product’s value. Think of Fairtrade-certified coffee contra non-certified alternatives, customers often perceive a greater value in products backed by well-known accreditations. This blog post will describe the importance of standards and certifications as significant value creating measures in the HVAC industry.
The continuous, global flow of trade is generally facilitated by the use of standards and certifications. This because they harmonise regulations across countries and reduce the risk for manufacturers to face legal liabilities. At the same time, customers can get an understanding of the promised properties and values of a product. ISO 9001 and the CE marking are perhaps the most-known standards, which signal reliability and compliance. However, while standards offer benefits in terms of ensured quality and performance, they can also pose a number of challenges. It can be both complex and time consuming to align and comply as testing requires laboratory access, may imply product modifications and entails future revisions.
Some industries, like the healthcare and pharmaceuticals, automotive and aviation are strictly dependent on a wide range of standards due to the serious nature of their products. Others rely on standards too, but are not as firmly governed by them. The industry in which we operate – the construction and buildings materials industry - is no exception, standards play a vital role also in our daily operations.
Data collection for technical specifications
In our area of expertise – heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) – the business process often begins with a client specifying the requirements for the indoor climate in a building. Products are selected based on their technical specifications, products are then installed and commissioned. But, is that it? How can customers be confident that the products will deliver as expected? How can they recognise if there are differences between similar offerings from different suppliers?
The fundamentals for choosing HVAC products lies in the technical specifications. These are obtained from rigorous data collection during testing of products. Testing is made throughout a products entire lifecycle, from prototype to finished item and beyond, and tests are typically made according to applicable standards. These standards are designed by experts or academia, and they ensure uniform testing methods for similar products, meaning testing in certain predefined operational scenarios. Tested products will either pass or fail, which means that standards indirectly support product development and manufacturing, however they are not contributing to differentiation or value-addition to products. So, what does?
Lab access is a key value creating factor
One way to create added value is to conduct tests beyond industry standards, in the best case scenario, tests are made according to the customers’ exact needs. For that to be viable and efficient, access to advanced lab environments is essential.
At Swegon we own and operate 11 state-of-the-art labs, across our 17 markets. All of these have the needed facilities to interpret, apply and test according to industry standards. A majority of them also offer nearly unique functionalities for conducting highly detailed and tailored tests, it is for instance possible to precisely simulate seasonal variations, accommodate high ceilings (beyond 5 meters) and conduct full scale testing. Our laboratory for cooling and heating products in Italy, at Cantarana di Cona, is an excellent example of the latter.
Our test managers often emphasise how inspiring it is to follow a product from the R&D department through multiple prototypes, to a finished unit and further on during a product’s lifecycle. The ability to test products for hours and hours, or even weeks and weeks, to verify and confirm exact product data or to ensure that a customised solution delivers beyond expectations, is what makes the labs key for delivering added value to our product offers.
Third party certification crowns a product
In addition to in-house testing, third-party certification is a way to create customer value. Eurovent Certita Certification is a leading organisation in the HVAC industry which offers third party validation of product quality and performance. Their thorough work and independence make the Eurovent certification a clear assurance of reliability and transparency. In fact, Eurovent is in turn accredited by Cofrac-Accreditation 5-5017, which means that it meets the requirements of the EN ISO/IEC 17065:2012 standards. To further explain, this accreditation is not only ensuring product compliance with relevant standards but also guarantees that the manufacturer’s stated operating data is correct. Knowing all this, it is not surprising that procurement offices often put requests for certified products.
The benefits of certifying products with a third-party organisation, taps into yet another area of interest – sustainability. Once again using Eurovent as an example, their certification aligns with set targets for energy efficiency and environmental performance which help manufacturers to prove their contribution to sustainable developments and speak to the environmentally conscious customer. However, it is not only this customer who finds relevance in sustainability conformity. The building industry as a whole faces enormous challenges in terms of energy consumption and embodied carbon emissions, and third-party certification offers a basic level of guaranteed sustainability effort.
At Swegon we believe that meeting industry standards is to do the least for a product’s success. Using advanced labs for unlimited testing creates great value as the customer can be assured that the selected solution delivers according, or beyond, expectations. However, to certify products according to third-party standards, like the Eurovent Certita Certification, is definitely what crowns a product and what truly ensures the customer a trustworthy and high-performing HVAC solution.
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