Making it easier to ensure you’re getting the steel you ordered.

The assurance of quality in the building sector is of prime importance, and the evidence of conforming materials is increasingly becoming more important to builders. In the current environment, with a diverse and global supply, do you have certainty regarding the conformity of your steel?

The building industry predominantly uses paper systems for the verification and recording of conformity for products and materials. This is often carried out by the builder or the supplier who identifies the manufacturers of the products, requests the required compliance documentation, compiles folders, and provides these as part of the handover package.

This process is not only time-consuming and onerous, but it also relies on being able to identify particular lots from a manufacturer, and then being able to cross-reference and match those lots to a particular document.

While this provides a sufficient level of confidence for a significant number of products, for safety-critical building components or materials, it is essential that we have confidence in products through the traceability of the product – from the manufacturer to the site. In such cases, the evidence of compliance of each batch needs to be provided to ensure the performance of the product, and its conformance with relevant New Zealand Standards.

With the increase of requests to demonstrate compliance in the building sector, there has also been an observed increase in cases of falsified test records and falsified test certificates, along with a lack of traceability between the documentation and the product supplied. These factors further complicate the collection of required compliance documentation, and increase the workload for builders and suppliers.

In recent years, there has been an increasingly digitised environment, with verification of authenticity and digital identification now everyday occurrences for items including groceries, textiles, and pharmaceutical products. These digital systems enable easy and efficient identification and verification of products down to a batch level, thus enabling the confirmation of compliance for the public benefit.

Another widely used example of digital identification and verification systems would be the COVID-19 certificates used for international travel – a simple and secure digital certificate that provides a widely recognised and standardised verification of conformance with statutory requirements (in this case, vaccination status).

While the acceptance and uptake of digital technologies across the building sector has lagged behind many other industry sectors across New Zealand, it is clear that a move away from traditional paper-based systems to digital product verification and traceability will deliver a significant range of benefits. Together with the improved efficiency, productivity gains and reduced costs that come from streamlining the entire product conformity process, standardised digital certificates are also expected to reduce the opportunities for non-conforming materials being delivered to site.

The Australasian Certification Authority for Reinforcing and Structural Steels (ACRS) strives to innovate and develop systems to meet the needs of the New Zealand construction industry. Having worked in the certification and traceability of steel products for more than 20 years, ACRS has a comprehensive, detailed and independent understanding of steel manufacturing and fabrication – from the mill or processor, through the supply chain, and to the construction site.

While the current ACRS certification system has served specifiers, engineers and end users across New Zealand and Australia extremely well for many years, ACRS is now moving into the digital domain with a new cloud-based certification system to improve efficiencies and provide additional confidence in compliance.

This move to a digital system will commence with the rollout of newly formatted certificates containing a QR code. This QR code may be scanned using the free ACRS cloud app, thus validating the certificate, the scope of the certificate, product markings, and the period of validity of the product. This will be followed by the gradual rollout of QR codes on labels and tags for all ACRS-certified products.

The new digital system will enable quick and easy verification that the documentation supplied is valid, and that it is relevant to the batch of material or product that you have been supplied – improving efficiency and providing the end user or owner with a high level of confidence that the product specified was supplied and installed.

In a global supply environment, it has never been more critical to ensure that you are getting compliant reinforcing and structural steels that are fit-for-purpose and conform with the relevant New Zealand and Australian Standards. The easiest way to do this is to:

specify ACRS-certified steels

specify steel from ACRS-certified manufacturers and processors

check on delivery that the product is correctly labelled and has an ACRS certificate.

With the new ACRS digital certificates and app, you’ll be able to check compliance quickly, easily and conveniently using your smartphone.

For more information, visit www.steelcertification.com.