World-class testing lab NUSDAT-UTS starts operations

Economic Correspondent: With the aim of testing the quality of electronics and electrical products, the country’s first ever world-class testing lab NUSDAT Universal Testing Services (UTS) has kicked off its journey recently.

Of late, NUSDAT-UTS, established at Chandra in Gazipur, has achieved accreditation certificate from Bangladesh Accreditation Board (BAB) for meeting the requirements of ISO/IEC 17025:2005.

Earlier, there was no lab in Bangladesh for testing the quality of electronics products. As a result, the exporters of consumer based electronics products had to get quality testing certificate from the testing institutions of different countries, for which they had to count both huge time and local currency.

With the advent of NUSDAT-UTS in Bangladesh, the local exporters of electronics and electrical products will now easily get the testing certificates of their export goods without spending huge amount of local currency.

According to the lab authorities, NUSDAT-UTS initially will provide testing certificates of fridges and air conditioners. Later, the testing lab will deliver services for other electronics products including television and motorcycle.

The authorities said more than 5o highly meritorious and experienced engineers and technicians are testing the products’ quality with most advanced equipments in line with the international standards.  

For upholding all the criteria of international standard’s testing lab, NUSDAT-UTS achieved the recognition from BAB.

It was learnt that BAB, an institution of Bangladesh government, offers accreditation programmes for various types of conformity assessment bodies, including laboratories, certification bodies, inspection bodies, training institutions or persons in accordance with the relevant International Organisation for Standardization (ISO), International Electro Technical Commission and other regulatory and national standards.

BAB is working on upgrading the quality infrastructure and conformity assessment procedures in Bangladesh and enhancing the recognition and acceptance of products and services in international, regional and domestic markets.

As BAB is ILAC (International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation) and APLAC (Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation) signatory, the testing certificates given by NUSDAT-UTS will be accepted by all countries under ILAC and APLAC MRA signatory.

 

It may be noted that the exporters of fridges and air conditioners have to follow the standards, set by the authorized standardization bodies of importing countries. Generally, most of the countries set their standards level following an international rating.

At NUSDAT-UTS, various types of tests of fridges and ACs are performed, including energy consumption test, temperature performance test, pull down test, volume measurement, freezing capacity test, Ice making test, cooling capacity test, minimum and maximum cooling performance, condensate control and enclosure sweat performance test, heating capacity test, minimum and maximum heating performance test and automatic defrost performance test.

Engr. Al Imran, manager of NUSDAT-UTS lab, said the lab was established with the combination of highly skilled and experienced engineers and world’s latest testing technologies and equipments.

All necessary facilities are installed in the lab for testing the product’s quality in accordance with the international quality standards, he said adding that the testing reports provided by NUSDAT would be accepted by the authorized standardization bodies of all the countries under ILAC and APLAC signatory, including India, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

In near future, the testing results of NUSDAT-UTS would be accepted by the authorized standardization bodies of US, Australia, New Zealand, China, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Europe, Imran hoped.

“Initially, we achieved accreditation from BAB for testing the quality standards of fridges and air conditioners,” he said and hoped that they will also get the certificate for testing television soon.

This accreditation will act as a milestone for exporting Bangladesh made consumer based electronics products, he believed.

In addition, huge amount of local and foreign currencies can be earned through issuing testing certificates to other local and global brands, Imran said adding harassment faced by the local electronics goods manufacturers for testing their products would be reduced.

risingbd/DHAKA/Nov 17, 2015/Akram Hossain/Augustin Sujan