UNBS building materials laboratory attains global accreditation

The Uganda National Bureau of Standards Engineering Materials Testing Laboratory has officially attained accreditation from the South African National Accreditation System (SANAS) as the SANAS Facility T1009. 

The facility is accredited in accordance with the recognised International Standard ISO/IEC 17025:2017 General Requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories.

The SANAS accreditation means that test results from the UNBS Engineering Materials Testing Laboratory are internationally recognised, and support various activities such as certification; imports inspection as well as the promotion of exports to various external markets.

This is the third UNBS Laboratory to be internationally accredited in addition to the Food safety laboratories (the Chemistry and the Microbiology labs), thus consolidating UNBS’ position as the apex standards regulatory agency in Uganda, with fully furnished and functional quality assurance infrastructure.

The UNBS Engineering Materials Testing Laboratory carries out various tests on different building and engineering materials to evaluate their compliance to standards, aimed at safeguarding the interest of both the consumer and producer; and assure the quality of goods purchased. This is also in line with the UNBS mandate of ensuring fair trade and protecting the consumer and environment against dangerous and harmful substandard products.

Some of the materials and products tested by the UNBS Engineering Materials Testing Laboratory include: Cement and lime, plain and corrugated iron sheets (galvanised and pre-painted), reinforcement steel bars and structural steel, burnt clay bricks, concrete blocks and pre-cast paving blocks, manhole covers, garden implements (hoes &pangas) and wires and wire products.

Others are sands and aggregates, paper and paper products, roofing tiles, damp proof course, product particle size analysis, window stays and fasteners, door locks, foam mattresses, hurricane lanterns and aluminium saucepans (sufurias)

UNBS has urged the business community to make use of the available UNBS internationally accredited laboratories to get certification and increase the competiveness of Uganda products on the national, regional, continental and international markets.

The South African National Accreditation System (SANAS) is a signatory to the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) which gives it world-wide recognition as a competent body for carrying out independent evaluation of certification bodies against recognised standards. International accreditation agreements provide a mechanism that allows accredited certificates to be accepted around the world which reduces the risk of products and services being rejected in international markets.