Use of SAE Standards

[swall]

I've been around SAE standards for years, but never gave any thought as to the procedure by which an organization could ethically and lawfully label a product as meeting a given standard. Let's say you make brake hoses and want to be compliant with the SAE brake hose spec (J 1401). I assume that you would find a certified test lab and have the performance tests in the standard run. If all the tests passed, I assume you file test results away for future inspection and then can market the hose with the SAE J1401 designation applied to it. Is this how it works?

 

[IRstuff]

Pretty much. Most of standards for commercial products are self-certifying, i.e., I could test a product myself to the requirements of a standard and then claim compliance to the standard. Obviously credibility might dictate the usage of an outside authority.

There are some, such as UL, that require products to be only tested by them to be certified.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[arunmrao]

Bureau of Indian Standards does not permit BIS mark to be used unless it is granted by the agency. Perhaps this might be due to low awareness of the trademark amongst the public.

Save water Drink Beer

 

[greenone]

NYC requires certain items to be approved by the BSA (Board of Standards and Appeals)-you need to submit your widget and get an approval number to place on drawings and specs.

 

[HgTX]

Different set of standards, but I've seen plenty of test reports from welding consumable manufacturers certifying that they meet the requirements of AWS A5.X, while if you actually check their test results against A5.X, they failed the test.

Hg

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[IRstuff]

People do lie, but SAE and ANSI are strictly chartered for creation and promulgation of standards, but not the certification process. That's left to industry to decide.

That may, or may not, be a problem, but only if the standard is sufficiently vague that a due-diligence effort at testing and validation might still result in non-compliance when tested elsewhere. That's a fundamental problem even with stuff that;s ostensibly traceable to NIST standards.

Even then, validity in testing is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. Most military contracts require environmental qualification, but they're unwilling to pay for what it would REALLY cost to validate system functionality during any single environmental test, so even a pass might mean little in the real world.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[DonPhillips]

In building code enforcement, the claim must be verified by an independent, third party. I typically ask for copies of the test report.

Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[GregLocock]

I think you should bear in mind that many SAE standards actually just define test methods, not the limits to which the test is applied.

Admittedly 1401 in particular does include the loads and times.

Cheers

Greg Locock

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