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Guest Editorial
The True Test
There are ways to get around anything, but the consequences of illegitimate product
testing affect the whole industry.
By Shaun Bolender
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After
considerable effort by government officials and industry leaders alike,
Florida has a new Building Code. Within this new code there are many
requirements for product approvals and certifications in various segments
of the construction industry. While many feel that these new requirements
(not so new in some jurisdictions) are onerous, others see the tremendous
marketing opportunities created by quickly complying with these approvals
and certifications.
In many cases approval, certification or eligibility of a product
requires testing by an “independent lab” qualified in that
particular area. The wise product marketers are fast to have their
products qualified and seek to gain market share that previously might
have been occupied by a competitor who either refuses to accept the
imposition of independent testing or whose product simply won’t
qualify when put to the test.
Like independent auditors (accounting firms), independent test labs
are required to be just that, independent from any influences of their
customers and to report only the facts about their customers’
products. These labs are prohibited from having any customer or potential
customer as a stockholder or owner, even in those now famous “off-the-books
partnerships.”
Providing reports as to a product’s performance that is, in any
way, different than reality or was created by altering the protocols
of test criteria so as to “create false results/the desired outcome,”
reflects degradation not only of the lab’s integrity, but also
the integrity of the product and its owners. Worse than any of that
is the violation of public trust placed in a system that involves
not only consumers and the construction industry but insurance company
underwriters, risk managers and also public officials who examine
these approvals and the results they ultimately bring about when a
storm hits.
How would you feel, and what credibility would your stock offering
have if the independent audit upon which the information was based
had been performed recently by Arthur Andersen?
RUN, DON’T WALK
The marketplace isn’t very forgiving. Given the choice between
legitimacy and the unknown (or even the questionable), the marketplace
will gravitate to the legitimate known quantity every time!
If a company with the reputation that Arthur Andersen now has were
the independent test lab of your choice, then consider the following
questions:
• How would you feel if you were watching the nightly news and
a reporter outlines the allegations of fraud by that lab?
• What happens to the balance of your orders when your customers
see the same report? Or what happens to the pending deals your sales
force is working on in a very competitive market? Remember the economic
“rule of law”: The marketplace always seeks the known to
be legitimate.
If a lab you are using has ever suggested that you can get the results
you want, regardless of the actual performance of your product when
put through the various rigors of the building code(s), run!
You may have to pay a little extra or spend a little more in re-engineering
to get a legitimate certification for product approval, but there
is no question as to the value of such a certificate.
Much like that mighty and powerful Category 5 hurricane, it is only
a question of time, not a question of if. Even though the new Florida
Building Code will go through many adjustments, there are a couple
of certainties: the code will eventually be unified and it will certainly
be enforced.
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES
There are two ways to get your product approved, legitimately or illegitimately.
Let’s examine how either can come about and the consequences
of each strategy.
• Legitimately: Test your product and reengineer it, if necessary,
until it has reached the required standards for approval.
Consequences: You’ve invested in your product’s future and
are able to legitimately market it as qualified. You engineered it
to withstand the various rigors of the code and verified that quality
by submitting to independent testing by a qualified and approved lab.
Now that you have product approval, you must compete against those
products that either have no qualification or rely on the buyer’s
wisdom to know what is legal and what is not as is the case when a
competing product obtains an approval illegitimately. This is where
code enforcement and the teeth in the code come in.
• Illegitimately: Create a product that might appear to the untrained
eye to be legitimate. Seek a lab that will provide you the results
you want regardless of the actual outcome of the true test when applied
as required. Get a written and certified test report, albeit under
less than appropriate conditions.
Consequences: You’ve spent plenty of time and oftentimes more
money with an unscrupulous lab to obtain an illegitimate certification
and now you can market to the uninformed that it is legitimate and
you can continue to do so until the caper unfolds. Rest assured it
will unfold, like that Category 5 hurricane, it is not a question
of if, but when.
When it unfolds, your product will be caught up in the fray—even
if you’ve obtained a legitimate certification—until the
full circumstances unravel. Like the other Arthur Andersen customers
whose books are in order and who function legitimately, their books
now are called into question by the jury of the marketplace.
You may well be legally enjoined from marketing your product until
such time as the investigations are complete. Your best option at
that point would be to invest and test again (not knowing what the
outcome will be), get re-certified and then send your sales force
out to attempt to retain or, worse yet, regain market. That’s
what many of Arthur Andersen’s customers are now doing—re-auditing
with other firms at tremendous additional expense.
RESPONSIBILITY
Legitimate independent test labs cannot and will not provide you with
the results that you are looking for. Putting your products through
the required rigors of the code is what independent labs do. Then
they create the reports that actually describe the true outcome of
those tests. Those reports are your proof to the world.
To do otherwise would jeopardize both the future credibility and marketability
of all manufacturers and their products. It would virtually eliminate
the lab’s own future, and it would be a criminal disservice to
the public that relies on that independent status and fiduciary responsibility.
Unannounced visits from building officials, independent certifying
agencies and clients should be welcome at any time by the independent
testing laboratory that has the client’s interest and that of
the consuming public at heart.
Shaun Bolender, vice president, American Test Lab
of South Florida, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, 888-973-0808. |
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