A compliance star rating is awarded to all products on the SA Watermark register. A higher star rating means that more levels of verification has being done to continuously verify the compliance of the product.
Verification of Product Compliance aspects :
- Design Verification: This means that the product has been tested to confirm that the product design complies with all the requirements of the SANS standard.
- Production verification: This means that the process of manufacturing a product is verified accordingly to that of the manufactured product and is identical to the design that was originally tested.
- Blind testing: This means that products are selected at random and subjected to tests to confirm that the product complies to its’ relevant SANS standard. This process is conducted by the SA-IAS without any interference of the manufacturer or supplier of the product.
The reality is however that there are costs involved in any
type of verification process. The more rigorous the verification the higher the
cost. A high level of compliance verification can therefore be out of reach of
for instance a small local enterprise. To make the SA Watermark accessible to a
wider scope of manufacturers (and to support our local SMME’s) a choice of
compliance verifications is offered. This is done in the form of the star
ratings.
It is the manufacturer or supplier’s choice which star rating
should be applied to his product listing. The meanings of the different star
ratings are as follows:
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| Once off Design verification i.e. Test report, or Certification |
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ongoing Production Audits i.e. Ongoing certification, or Factory audits plus partial testing (SAW instruct test to be done and client submit for testing) |
✓ | ✓ | ||
| Ongoing Blind Testing i.e. SAW select sample and send it away for testing |
✓ | ✓ | ||
| Manufacturers commitment. The manufacturer committed legally to continue producing products identical to the verified design |
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
1 x Star: Signifies that the product design was verified. The supplier of the product legally committed to ensure that all products made available for sale, will be identical to the verified design. The product listing will expire 24 months after it was listed.
2 x Stars: All requirements for a 1 Star rating will be complied with. In addition, blind test will be performed on the product to confirm the ongoing compliance.
3 x Stars: Signifies that the product design was verified, and that the production facility was audited to confirm its’ capability to continue producing products that are identical to the verified design. The supplier of the product legally committed to ensure that all products made available for sale, will be identical to the verified design.
4 x Stars: All requirements for a 3 Star rating will be complied with. In addition, blind test will be performed on the product to confirm the ongoing compliance.