Latest News

08.09.11

StanCert organises an Australian Technical Infrastructure Alliance Awareness Raising Event in Canberra on the 8th of September 2011

The Australian Technical Infrastructure Alliance (ATIA) is hosted by StanCert and provides a single point of access to the combined capability, expertise and resources of the four core bodies responsible for Australia’s Standards and Conformance:

• Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JAS-ANZ)
• National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA)
• National Measurement Institute (NMI)
• Standards Australia (SA)

Australia’s Technical infrastructure  is made up of systems, organisations and resources that operate in the background: improving everyday life; supporting and fostering new technologies; underpinning commerce; assisting productivity and growth; facilitating international trade and providing the basis for confidence.

Everyday commercial transactions and international trade could not take place without the support of an effective technical infrastructure.

Such infrastructure, comprising metrology, standards, accreditation, and conformity assessment also impacts on our everyday lives such as having confidence in the accuracy of a kilogram of meat or a litre of petrol, getting correct results from a blood test, the way seatbelts in a car operate and the safety of our food.

06.12.11

StanCert to facilitate OECD workshop of product safety and risk

The OECD workshop will be held in April 2012 in Israel and will develop a deeper understanding of how organisations assess risk. It will examine the extent to which the different approached taken by jurisdictions result in different outcomes. Experiences and lessons learned will be shared. Participants will seek to identify common elements in risk assessment and develop a shared view of the elements that should be included in a product safety risk assessment methodology.

17.11.11

StanCert facilitates US, EU and China discussions on product safety

The objective of the one day Roundtable was to find effective ways to raise awareness of European and US product safety requirements in China in order to ensure that stakeholders especially designers and manufacturers and compliance assessors are aware of the relevant requirements when designing, producing, exporting and controlling products going to the US or European markets.

The Roundtable looked into dissemination issues such as:

• What are the barriers to the communication of regulatory requirements in China? To identify any potential challenges to communicating regulatory requirements in China.  Examples of such challenges may include awareness, motivation, literacy, language and access to requirements.
• WHO should product safety information target in China? Who are the relevant actors in China (authorities, product designers, producers, exporters, etc.) that need to know about the EU and US product safety requirements in order to ensure that products comply with these when exported to the respective markets?
• HOW best to distribute product safety information in China? What distribution channel is the best / most efficient to use in order to ensure that product safety information gets to the right people in China?
• WHAT communication tools to use?  What would be the best form / forms of communication tools to use (electronic, leaflets, personal training, training packages, etc.)?

The EU and the US supported the Roundtable because it is important that the stakeholders understand they need to check the export destination requirements due to the different requirements.

The Roundtable formed part of the (EU-China Trade Project) EUCTP and was organised by the Beijing EUCTP Team.

The main organisations that partnered in organising and running the Roundtable were:

• The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ).
• European Commission (DG SANCO and DG ENTR).
• US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

01.07.11

StanCert is working with industry to develop a new cloud computing certification scheme

StanCert have commenced work on the development of a cloud computing certification scheme.  There are many drivers for cloud computing including:

• Cost savings and financial agility because capital expenditure is converted to operational expenditure
• Responsiveness – reduced implementation times
• Improved availability/reliability
• Functionality – cloud offers features organisations could not build themselves

The benefits include:

• Scalability
• Efficiency
• Cost containment
• Flexibility
• Availability - device and location independence
• Reliability and resiliency
• Environmentally and energy efficient

However to access these benefits there are many considerations:

• Privacy
• Security
• Data sovereignty
• Legislative jurisdictions
• Local market maturity
• Legacy environments
• Business continuity
• Bandwidth and latency
• Standards
• Data Centre strategy
• Skills
• Interoperability
• Portability
• Service Level Agreements
• Business continuity

A certification scheme can provide a list of scheduled standards that address many of the cloud computing considerations.  Much of this mapping and research work has already been done by Government and Industry.

A certification scheme would provide a rigorous framework for trained, experienced and competent third party assessors to validate cloud computer service providers compliance to the scheduled standards.

A background document is available for those who want more information on this initiative.· For more information contact StanCert at admin@stancert.com

06.09.11

StanCert facilitates new anti-graffiti standard

Graffiti is a major concern to the community, it pervades our everyday life particularly as you catch the train to work or take your children to the local park.

Graffiti costs local councils $260 million per year.  It also costs NSW tax payers $100 million and private enterprise even more.  The social costs of graffiti are more dramatic with some researchers warning that graffiti causes anxiety and fear in society because it signals a lack of crime control by the authorities.  In some cases it is believed that graffiti actually leads to a higher incidence of crime.

There has been many good efforts made at all levels of government and by private industry to address graffiti, however this work to some degree occurs in silos and can be transitory in nature.

A group of concerned political leaders, government officials, individuals and organisations are now joining forces to initiate the development an Australian Anti-Graffiti Standard with a view of consolidating the good work that has been done to fight graffiti.   The standard will be developed through Australia’s National Standards Body, Standards Australia (www.standards.org.au).  The initiative is being project managed by one of Australia’s leading standards facilitation organisations, StanCert (www.stancert.com).

An Australian Standard will take a consistent and national approach to address two key aspects of graffiti:

1.       Strategies for prevention such as planning, engineering controls on aerosol cans valves, sacrificial surfaces etc.

2.       Techniques for the rapid removal of graffiti.

A background document is available for those who want more information on this initiative.  For more information contact StanCert at admin@stancert.com

11.08.11

StanCert facilitates a Cloud Computing Forum

On the 11^th of August 2011 StanCert facilitated a cloud computing forum for Standards Australia.

The forum was well attended with key telecommunications and cloud suppliers present such as Telstra, Macquarie Telecom, Microsoft, Fujitsu and IBM.  There was also a number of key government agencies present including the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), Department of Finance and Deregulation.

Cloud Computing represents significant innovation in the way that computing resources are served and consumed. The Cloud is said to represent a more flexible and scalable level of service provision as customers are offered access to storage, networking and applications via networks.  It is predicted that 70% of corporate services will be delivered through cloud based services five years from now, attracting major investment and generating rapid new deployments.

07.09.11

New bunk bed safety laws

On 8 September 2011, a consultation draft of the Fair Trading (Safety Standards) Regulation 2011 was tabled in Queensland Parliament.

The intention of the regulation is to improve child safety by requiring short-term accommodation premises to comply with a mandatory safety standard for bunk beds.

Mandatory safety standards for the manufacture and supply of bunk beds were introduced in November 2002. These regulations did not apply to existing bunk beds in short term accommodation.

The draft regulation is intended to apply to anyone who provides accommodation services for periods up to 60 days where accommodation is supplied to people 16 years or under.

If the regulation is made, short term accommodation providers will need to ensure that any bunk beds provided as part of their accommodation service comply with the mandatory safety standard prescribed by the regulation.

The safety standard proposed to be prescribed in the regulation is based on specified clauses of the Australian and New Zealand Standard for bunk beds AS/NZS 4220:1994.

It is proposed that under the regulation short-term accommodation providers will have until October 2013 to meet the prescribed safety standard.

To assist you in interpreting the requirements of the new regulation StanCert have developed the attached brochure that can be downloaded from here.

18.2.11

StanCert assists the Department of Defence meet the requirements of the Protective Security Policy Framework

StanCert recently assisted the Department of Defence through the Defence Security Authority to  revise their security systems to align with the Protective Security Framework introduced by the Hon Robert McClelland MP, Attorney-General, as of June 2010. StanCert was privileged to be involved in this project and found this experience of working with Defence to be both interesting and rewarding.

According to the Attorney-General’s Department, the Protective Security Policy Framework is designed to help agencies:

• identify their individual levels of security risk tolerance
• achieve the mandatory requirements for protective security expected by Government, and
• develop an appropriate security culture to securely meet their business goals.

The Government requires agency heads to have in place effective protective security programs that ensure: their respective agency’s capacity to function; the public’s confidence in the Government and its agencies; official resources and information the Government holds on trust, both from and for the public, and those provided in confidence by other countries, are safeguarded; and the safety of those employed to carry out the functions of government and those who are clients of government.

To achieve this, agency heads are to ensure that protective security is a part of their agency’s culture. A successful culture will effectively balance the competing requirements of limiting access to those that have a genuine ‘need to know’ with ensuring key business partners receive the information in an appropriate timeframe (‘need-to-share’).

As the Government relies heavily on information and communication technology to deliver its services, agencies must actively manage security risks associated with electronic data transmission, aggregation and storage.

Agency heads are to apply the Protective Security Policy Framework with the understanding that it is the path to successfully protecting our people, information and assets.

The Australian Government, through the Attorney-General’s Department, will continue to develop and refine protective security policy that promotes the most effective and efficient ways to secure the continued delivery of Government business.

16.3.11

StanCert Managing Director acted as chair of the inaugural meeting of the Australian COPOLCO Mirror Committee

 COPOLCO is the Committee on Consumer Policy of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). mirror committee will provide Australia’s technical input into COPOLCO.

• customer satisfaction, including guidance for organizations on how to develop codes of conduct, complaints handling mechanisms, and external customer dispute resolution systems
• environmental management systems
• social responsibility
• tourism and related services
• trading of second hand goods

While COPOLCO itself does not write standards (that work is carried out by ISO’s technical committees), it does produce standards development guides, policy statements and informational publications on issues of importance to consumers such as:

• child safety
• comparative testing of consumer products and services
• consumer participation in standardization
• general safety guidelines
• graphical symbols
• packaging
• product information and instructions
• the needs of the elderly and people with disabilities
• development of standards for services and recommendations for addressing consumer issues

17.3.11

StanCert Managing Director invited to join the Australian Design Awards Good Design Council

The Council will be made up of a broad representation of the design industry and business leaders in Australia and internationally, and will be the new advisory forum for the Australian International Design Awards (AIDA) program. The core purpose of the Council is to advise Good Design Australia on the strategic direction of the Australian International Design Awards and to ensure the program continues to align to the needs of the design sector.

Some of the key areas the members of the Council will be asked to consider include:

• helping to strategically guide the development of new categories and areas of design within the AIDA program;
• providing a constructive forum for review of Good Design Australia’s management of the AIDA program;
• assisting Good Design Australia in attracting new and appropriate partners and sponsors as the AIDA program grows;
• developing design promotion initiatives that will enable Good Design Australia to achieve its core objective of promoting design and innovation in Australia;
• providing a creative forum to discuss Australian and international design trends and how these may impact the AIDA program and the ongoing development of Good Design Australia as a  national design promotion organisation for Australia.

StanCert is proud to join the Design Council and hopes to use its membership to reinforce the importance of safety, compliance and universal accessibility in design.