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NBS Special Publication 736

Proceedings of the Conference on Accreditation of

Construction Materials Testing Laboratories

James H. Pielert and Curtis B. Spring, Editors

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1987

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m he National Bureau of Standards' was established by an act of Congress on March 3, 1901. The Bureau's overall

goal is to strengthen and advance the nation's science and technology and facilitate their effective application for public benefit. To this end, the Bureau conducts research to assure international competitiveness and leadership of U.S.

industry, science and technology. NBS work involves development and transfer of measurements, standards and related science and technology, in support of continually improving U.S. productivity, product quality and reliability, innovation

and underlying science and engineering. The Bureau's technical work is performed by the National Measurement

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Ceramics

Fracture and Deformation3 Polymers

Metallurgy

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'Headquarters and Laboratories at Gaithersburg, MD, unless otherwise noted; mailing address Gaithersburg, MD 20899.

2 Some divisions within the center are located at Boulder, CO 80303.

'Located at Boulder, CO. with some elements at Gaithersburg, MD
Research Information Center

National Bureau of Standards

Gaithersburg, Maryland 20399

NBS Special Publication 736

dC too

I 9 27

Proceedings of the Conference on Accreditation of c

Construction Materials Testing Laboratories

Held at NBS on May 14-15, 1986

Sponsored by:

American Society for Testing and Materials

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials

American Concrete Institute

American Council of Independent Laboratories

Florida Concrete and Products Association

Edited by James H. Pielert and Curtis B. Spring

Construction Materials Reference Laboratories

Building Materials Division

National Engineering Laboratory

National Bureau of Standards

Gaithersburg, MD 20899

November 1987

U.S. Deportment of Commerce

C. William Verity, Secretary

National Bureau of Standards

Ernest Ambler, Director
Library of Congress U.S. Government Printing Office

Catalog Card Number: 87-^19889 Washington: 1987

National Bureau of Standards

Special Publication 736

Natl. Bur. Stand. (U.S.)

Spec. Publ. 736

86 pages (Nov. 1987)

CODEN: XNBSAV

For sale by the Superintendent

of Documents,

U.S. Government Printing Office,

Washington, DC 20402
PREFACE

A two-day Conference hosted by NBS was held in Gaithersburg , Maryland on May

14-15, 1986 to test the hypothesis that "There is a need for a coordinated

methodology for accrediting construction materials testing laboratories. 1* Construction materials include primary materials such as: cement, concrete,

aggregates, rock and soil, asphalts, metals, wood and masonry. The Conference

was structured to consider: (1) the status of existing laboratory evaluation

and accreditation programs; (2) current trends in the accreditation process;

and (3) the need for and nature of a coordinated accreditation system. The

Conference included the presentation of invited papers and four workshop

sessions. Conference participants concluded that there is a need for a

coordinated national system for the accreditation of construction materials

testing laboratories and its development should be initiated. It was

recommended that a working group with representation from appropriate

organizations should be formed to define the goals, scope, format, and

procedures in coordinating laboratory accreditation efforts.

iii
CONFERENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Walter E. Capper

E. L. Conwell & Company

Emery Fark as

W. R. Grace Company

Richard D. Gaynor

National Sand and Gravel Association/

National Ready Mixed Concrete Association

Richard E. Hay

Federal Highway Administration

Walter E. Kunze

Portland Cement Association

Joseph F. Lamond

U. S. Army Corp of Engineers

James H. Pielert

National Bureau of Standards

Louis U. Spellman

Blue Circle/Atlantic Cement

Garland W. Steele

West Virginia Department of Highways
CONTENTS

Page

Preface iii

Conference Organizing Committee iv

1. Introduction 1

2. Purpose and Organization of Conference Workshop 1

3. Conference Papers 3

Welcome to NBS

Ernest Ambler 4

Conference Chairman Remarks

Walter E. Kunze 6

ASTM and Laboratory Accreditation

Peter Brown 8

AASHTO Staff Views

David J. Hensing 13

State-of-the-Art of Laboratory Accreditation Procedures in

the National and International Levels

John W. Locke 16

Status of ASTM Standard E329 and Other Related Standards

Spencer F. Thew 21

Status of NVLAP Activities Related to Construction Materials

Robert Gladhill 25

Status of AALA Activities Related to Construction Materials

John W. Locke 28

Accreditation of Testing Laboratories in Florida

John P. Roebuck 35

Construction Materials Reference Laboratories at NBS

James H. Pielert 39

Laboratory Accreditation from the Perspective of a

Construction Materials Engineer

Grover C. Williams 44

Laboratory Accreditation from the Perspective of a Model

Model Building Code

Thomas Frost 48

Laboratory Accreditation from the Perspective of State

Building Code Officials

William Connolly 52

v
Legal and Liability Concerns Associated with Certification

and Accreditation Programs

James Anderson 56

Certification Programs Experiences Relative to Liability Issues

Richard D. Gaynor 60

George Krepel, Jr 62

4. Workshop results 65

5. Recommendations of the Conference 69

Appendices

A. Conference Program A-1

B. Conference Registrants B-1

C. Guidelines for Workshop Chairmen C-1

Except where attributed to NBS authors, the content of

individual sections of this volume has not been reviewed or

edited by the National Bureau of Standards. NBS therefore

accepts no responsibility for comments or recommendations

therein. The mention of trade names in this volume is in no

sense an endorsement or recommendation of the National Bureau

of Standards.

vi
1

.

INTRODUCTION

A Conference on Accreditation of Construction Materials Testing Laboratories

was hosted by the National Bureau of Standards (UBS) in Gaithersburg, Maryland

on May 14-15, 1986. An Executive Summary of the conference has been prepared.

The Conference was sponsored by the:

American Society for Testing and Materials

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials

American Concrete Institute

American Council of Independent Laboratories

Florida Concrete and Products Association.

The Cement and Concrete Reference Laboratory (CCRL) is an NBS Research

Associate Program sponsored by ASTM Committees C-1 on Cement and C-9 on

Concrete and Concrete Aggregates. CCRL is organizationally located in the NBS

Center for Building Technology, which manages its day-to-day operations.

Policy oversight is provided to CCRL by a Joint ASTM C1/C9 Subcommittee on the

CCRL. This Joint Subcommittee is studying the possibility of accrediting

laboratories and in September 1985 made a recommendation to the ASTM Board of

Directors that:

1. CCRL programs be extended to include laboratory accreditation

within the framework of ASTM, and

2. if ASTM allows the Joint Subcommittee and CCRL to proceed with

laboratory accreditation, ASTM should work with NBS to revise the

policy established at the formation of CCRL in 1929 which specified

that CCRL would not certify laboratories.

While this recommendation was being considered by ASTM, the Joint Subcommittee

initiated plans for this National Conference to address the overall question

of accreditation of construction materials testing laboratories.

The Conference Organizing Committee established the purpose and organization

of the Conference, selected speakers and workshop chairmen, and prepared

guidelines for workshop chairmen. NBS hosted the Conference as a service to

the construction community and does not necessarily endorse the conclusions of

the workshops or the Conference as a whole.

2. PURPOSE AND ORGANIZATION OF CONFERENCE

The Conference was organized to test the hypothesis that:

"There is a need for a coordinated methodology for accrediting

construction materials testing laboratories."

James H. Pielert, Executive Summary - Conference on Accreditation of

Construction Materials Testing Laboratories, May 14-15, 1986 , National

Bureau of Standards Interim Report 86-3397, June 1986.

1
Construction materials were defined for the purposes of this conference to

include primary materials such as: cement, concrete, aggregates, rock and

soil, asphalts, metals, wood and masonry.

The Conference was structured to consider:

1. the status of existing laboratory evaluation and accreditation

programs for the primary construction materials;

2. current trends in the accreditation process; and

3. the need for and nature of a coordinated national accreditation

system.

Appendix A shows the program for the Conference. The first day included the

presentation of invited papers and the convening of four workshop sessions.

The presented papers are in Section 3. Each workshop was asked to address the

Conference hypothesis. The workshops continued meeting on the morning of the

second day to prepare reports with findings and proposed actions for

presentation to all Conference participants in the afternoon. The workshop

reports are given in Section 4 below. .Appendix B lists the names and

addresses of Conference registrants and workshop assignments. Appendix C

lists the issues provided to the workshop chairmen as possible topics for

discussion with the understanding that the workshops could change the list.

The following organizations are referenced in these proceedings:

AALA American Association for Laboratory Accreditation

AASHTO American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials

ACI American Concrete Institute

ACIL American Council of Independent Laboratories

AIA American Institute of Architects

AMRL AASHTO Materials Reference Laboratory

ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers

ASME American Society of Mechanical Fngineers

ASTM American Society for Testing and Materials

BOCA Building Officials and Code Administrators International

CABO Council of American Building Officials

CCRL Cement and Concrete Reference Laboratory

DoD U.S. Department of Defense

ELF/FCPA Engineering Laboratories Forum/Florida Concrete and Products

Association

FHWA Federal Highway Administration

GSA U.S. General Services Administration

HUD U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

ICBO International Conference of Building Officials

ILAC International Laboratory Accreditation Conference

NBS National Bureau of Standards

NCSBCS National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards

NIBS National Institute of Building Sciences

NVLAP National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program

PCI Prestressed Concrete Institute

SBCC Southern Building Code Congress International

WACEL Washington Area Council of Engineering Laboratories

2
3.0 CONFERENCE PAPERS

3
Welcome to NBS

Ernest Ambler, Director

National Bureau of Standards

Welcome to the Conference on Accreditation of Construction Materials Testing

Laboratories Hosted by the National Bureau of Standards and sponsored by ASTM,

the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the

American Concrete Institute, the American Council of Independent Laboratories,

and the Florida Concrete and Products Association. The subject of laboratory

accreditation is timely because of the national concern for improved quality

in construction. This is evidenced by the consideration of the subject by

ASTM which will be discussed at this conference and by the great attention to

improvements of quality being given by building designers, regulators,

constructors and owners. It is recognized that the performance of laboratory

testing is an important component in assuring quality construction. This

conference is structured to test the assertion that "there is a need for a

coordinated methodology for accrediting construction materials testing

laboratories." It will include discussion of current construction materials

laboratory evaluation and accreditation programs, and current trends and needs

related to the accreditation process.

NBS has a long history of providing support to the construction industry. The

Center for Building Technology is the National Building Research Laboratory

that develops technologies to predict, measure, and test the performance of

building materials, components, systems, and practices. It works

cooperatively with other organizations, public and private, to improve

building practices. The Construction Materials Reference Laboratories, CCRL

and AMRL, located in the Center are excellent examples of cooperation between

the Federal and private sectors. CCRL and AMRL are Research Associate

Programs involved with the evaluation of construction materials testing

laboratories. The CCRL was established in 1929 and is sponsored by the

American Society for Testing and Materials; AMRL started in 1965 and is

sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation

Officials. CCRL and AMRL have two primary functions which lead to an

improvement in the quality of testing of materials used in construction; the

inspection of materials testing laboratories and the distribution of

proficiency test samples. The National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation

Program (NVLAP), which has a laboratory accreditation program for freshly

mixed concrete and is considering a broader program for construction

materials, is also based here at NBS. These programs will be discussed in two

papers to be delivered at this conference.

There are many research areas here at NBS which relate to the construction

industry. I do not have time to discuss other activities but I would

encourage you to review NBS publication lists at the registration desk for

reports which may be of interest. You are also encouraged to visit our

laboratories as time permits.

NBS is very pleased to be a part of this conference which has brought together

many experts in the field of evaluation and accreditation of construction

materials testing laboratories. Please remember we really want to work

cooperatively with industry. That is certainly true not only in our technical

4
j na Tf> -indn^trv does not want a scheme of

work but also in our procedures. If indu

f

try aoeB

foist it on them.

visit to the Bureau.

5
I

Conference Chairman Remarks

Walter Kunze^

Portland Cement Association

I want to thank Dr. Ambler for his kind remarks of welcome and for making

these excellent facilities available for this meeting. You have been welcomed

several times and I would like to add one more on behalf of the CCRL

Subcommittee which is a joint subcommittee of ASTM Committees C1 on Cement and

C9 on Concrete and Concrete Aggregates.

A little history of how this conference came about may be helpful. A year ago

the Executive Group of the CCRL Subcommittee held its annual meeting here at

the National Bureau of Standards. During the course of discussions it became

evident that there is a misunderstanding needing clarification regarding the

scope of CCRL programs. Many people in the construction industry believe that

CCRL is an accrediting organization. CCRL, as Dr. Ambler and Jim Pielert

mentioned previously, is an organization intended to inspect laboratories

involved with cement, concrete and aggregate testing and to distribute

proficiency samples. CCRL is sponsored jointly by ASTM Committees C-1 and C-9

and is based at NBS as a Research Associate Program. Jim Pielert, Manager, is

an employee of NBS while all other CCRL staff members are employees of ASTM.

This relationship between CCRL, ASTM and NBS probably is not widely understood

by people who use CCRL nor by the construction industry in general.

CCRL does not certify or accredit laboratories. However, many laboratories

that are inspected by CCRL believe that they are accredited and sometimes

present themselves as such, without realizing that they are incorrect in doing

so. This illustrates the kind of confusion that exists today with respect to

accreditation of laboratories in general. The scope of each existing

accreditation program differs and certainly if those of us who work closely

with inspection and accreditation programs do not completely understand these

differences, how can we expect others to do so? Also, these differences

apparently are not clear to specifying agencies. If we are to be successful in

raising the quality standards of laboratories, we must encourage construction

specifications to recognize the benefit of specifying use of laboratories

which have been accredited. Such an accreditation system must be one on which

we all agree.

A discussion during the CCRL Subcommittee meeting one year ago suggested that

it might be appropriate for CCRL to extend its programs to include

accreditation of testing laboratories. As a result, we presented a recommendation along these lines to the ASTM Board but found that a Panel on

Accreditation headed by Mr. Wayne Ellis, a former president of ASTM who is

with us today, was already deeply involved in a study of accreditation.

Therefore it appeared that as a next step it might be appropriate to call a

general conference of all agencies interested in accreditation to provide a

forum for in-depth discussion of all viewpoints. Our presence here today is

an outgrowth of that thinking.

See Appendix B for addresses of speakers.
The purpose of today's Conference is to provide everyone with as clear a

picture as possible of the current status of the accreditation of construction

materials testing laboratories. Certainly, if we are to participate in any

kind of a decision making process, our first need is to understand where we

are today. This is the purpose of this Conference. The scope of the

Conference is intended to be limited to primary construction materials such as

cement, concrete, aggregates, rock, soil, asphalts, metals, wood, and masonry.

In order to assure broad participation in this Conference we sought and

secured sponsorship of other organizations. These groups have already been

mentioned. Let me quickly repeat that this Conference is being sponsored by

ASTM Committees C-1 and C-9, the American Association of State Highway and

Transportation Officials, the American Concrete Institute, the American

Council of Independent Laboratories, and the Florida Concrete and Products

Association. We thank these organizations for their participation, support

and counsel.

As Dr. Ambler mentioned, the purpose of this Conference is to lay on the

table, if you will, the statement, "there is a need for a coordinated

methodology for accrediting construction materials testing laboratories," to

discuss it and to hear all viewpoints. The Conference has been planned to

permit a number of speakers to address different points of view. There may be

some viewpoint that is not included, but this certainly is not Intentional. It

was mentioned that this evening we will be going into smaller workshop

sessions where everyone will have an opportunity to air his views. These

workshops will continue through tomorrow morning with workshop chairmen

reporting back to all participants tomorrow afternoon. This procedure has

been found in other conferences to be a good method for involving everybody.

Each of you is here because you have ideas and because you have an Interest in

this subject, and we want to hear your viewpoint. And I repeat again what Jim

Pielert said, feel free to ask questions of all speakers. They may not know

all the answers but your questions will stimulate thinking among others and

there may be someone in the audience who has an answer to a question that the

speakers do not have.

During this Conference we want to achieve a broad examination of current

laboratory evaluation and accreditation systems including their strengths and

weaknesses. These are the foundation stones with which we build. If, in

response to the hypothesis being examined, a need for a coordinated

accreditation process is determined, then we want to develop recommendations

for proceeding with its development. And finally, we want to have your

recommendations as to how the acceptance and use of an evaluation and

accrediting system might be encouraged. We accomplish little if an acceptable

accreditation system is not used. This is the final test for success.

The laboratory is but one link in the chain that makes up the quality system

for construction. But each link in that chain is equally important in terms

of the quality of the end result. The laboratory and the role it fulfills is

extremely important. By upgrading the quality of laboratory work, we want

this two-day conference to make a significant contribution toward upgrading

the overall product of the construction industry.

7
ASTM and Laboratory Accreditation

Peter Brown

American Society for Testing and Materials

The subject of today's Conference, "Accreditation of Construction Materials

Testing Laboratories" is of direct interest to both ASTM management and to the

many volunteers, many like yourselves, who participate on ASTM technical

committees. In fact, out of the 140 ASTM committees, approximately 40 of them

are heavily involved with test methods used daily in construction related

testing laboratories. These methods, and related specifications, span the

entire spectrum from acoustical materials, adhesives, aggregates, aluminum,

bituminous, brick, cement, clay, concrete, copper, gypsum, iron, masonry, and

natural building stones, to nickel, plastics, reference radiographs,

refractories, roofing, rubber, steel, thermal insulation, ultrasonics and

wood. One of the newest ASTM publications in the construction field is a

software package for economic evaluation of buildings. In total, over 700

standards are listed and referenced in the twenty second edition of the ASTM

Standards Building Codes.

Before I deal with the subject of ASTM and laboratory accreditation, let us

review the ASTM standards development process for those of you who are not

familiar with it. As many of you here know, ASTM is basically a management

system for the development of voluntary consensus standards and the promotion

of knowledge. We are one of the largest organizations in the world in this

area and we have to date published over 7500 standards. There are basically

six types of ASTM standards: specifications, test methods, guides, practices,

classifications, and definition standards. There is an axiom in ASTM, that in

a properly constituted and managed committee, what needs to happen will

happen. It is up to the constituencies in the committees, not the ASTM staff,

not the ASTM Board of Directors, to develop standards. Usually these

standards are driven by the marketplace. As stated in the forward to the two

volume compilation of construction standards, "The standards included in this

compilation represent the combined efforts, experience, knowledge, and

abilities of a great number of technical experts serving on various ASTM

technical committees." Overall, close to 30,000 people around the world

belong to ASTM. Engineers, designers, business people, industrialists,

researchers, administrators, and consumers from both the private and the

government sectors have one thing in common in joining ASTM, they find that

membership in ASTM serves, most importantly, their professional growth, and

secondly, it provides a valuable benefit to them in getting the job done.

Now lets take a look at the subject of ASTM and laboratory accreditation. In

doing so this morning I will address four major components. First is the

involvement of ASTM technical committees in the development of criteria for

accreditation and the resulting standards. Second is the role of

accreditation criteria as it relates to test methods, proficiency evaluation,

and to training and education. Third is a brief review of the ASTM Ad Hoc

Study Group and Panel on Laboratory Accreditation recommendations and

findings. And finally, if time permits, an update on the ASTM staff

implementation study of the Panel's recommendations.

When one first hears of a laboratory accreditation system, the first questions

8
that usually come Into mind are, what are the criteria for accrediting the

laboratory, and second, who developed these criteria and how were they

developed? In ASTM, any of the 140 technical committees can develop a

standard practice which addresses criteria for the evaluation of laboratories

within the scope of that committee. That's an important concept, it has to be

within the scope of that committee. Over the last decade at least 20 of our

committees have developed such practices on water, chemical analysis, soils,

acoustics, bituminous materials, coal, metalography, cement and concrete, to

mention a few. These standards contain criteria for accreditation of

laboratories in these areas. Just recently the Executive Committee of our

Committee A-1 on Steel reiterated their commitment to develop a standard

practice for the accreditation of laboratories engaged in the analysis of

ferrous metals. We can see that one of ASTM's major roles in the area of

laboratory accreditation is to develop specific standard practices which can

be used by any accrediting organization or agency.

I would like now to focus on a particular standard and relate it to test

methods and proficiency evaluation. The standard is E548 which is a Standard

Practice for the Preparation of Criteria for the Use in the Evaluation of

Testing Laboratories and Inspection Bodies. That is a lot of words, but it is

basically generic guidelines that provide a basis for the more specific

standards described above. This standard was developed by Committee E-36.

These guidelines include the area of test methods, proficiency evaluation,

standard reference materials, and the training of people who actually conduct

the tests. Let's take a look at the first one, test methods. Test

methodology is one of the key criteria in any laboratory accreditation

program. The methods that are used by a laboratory will have a tremendous

impact on the other criteria used in accreditation. The development of test

methods is a major objective in the many construction related technical

committees in ASTM. In fact, out of the 7500 standards that ASTM publishes

each year, 4700 are test methods. Many laboratories have incorporated these

methods in their everyday practice. What are some of the advantages of using

the ASTM or other national consensus test methods? First of all they are

developed by all sectors having an interest in the method. Second, they

represent a uniform approach to testing and they provide uniformity in the

methodology. Third, they contain a mandatory section on precision and bias.

Fourth, they are readily revised, in other words kept up-to-date, and finally,

the format of an ASTM test method is orderly and precise.

Lets take a look at the second area, proficiency evaluation and standard

reference materials. The oldest proficiency test program in ASTM is the

Cement and Concrete Reference Laboratory Program which is going to be covered

later in the program. Another ASTM sponsored program for proficiency

evaluation is the Engine Oil Test Monitoring Center. Laboratory tests have

been used to determine the properties and performance of engine oils for more

than 40 years. In 1957 General Motors, Ford and Chrysler developed the

laboratory engine sequence test as a yardstick of engine oil quality. These

tests eventually came into our own ASTM Committee D-2 on Petroleum and in 1973

the ASTM Reference Oil Test Monitoring Center was established with the

Carnegie Mellon Institute as the housing facility and administrator.

Presently there are three ASTM-NBS Research Associate Programs for the

development of standard reference materials (SRM). They cover the areas of

metals, glass, and particulate metrology. Up until 1974 the NBS SRM programs

were perceived as being mostly in the health and environmental areas. At that

9
time the metals industry along with ASTM sponsored a symposium and concluded

that metals were not being given the necessary priority. In response, ASTM

staff and three leading ASTM metals committees formed a Research Associate

Program at NBS. They began by raising over $200,000 from industry to fund the

program. They set up a coordinating committee which set priorities for the

SRMs and finally they hired one research associate and signed a memorandum of

agreement between ASTM and NBS to finalize the program. Two other programs

that have come along since then on glass and particulates. All three are

quite successful.

The third aspect of E-548 that ASTM is involved in is the area of training of

new and experienced laboratory staff. The need to provide the technical

community with education programs on the use of ASTM test methods and the

technology associated with them came to the attention of the ASTM Board of

Directors about 3 1/2 years ago. They approved the concept of a standard

technology training program and at present we have about a half dozen of these

programs actively moving forward. They include programs on classification of

soils, instrumental analysis, laboratory computers and plastics.

Lets now examine ASTM studies and recommendations over the last two years of

laboratory accreditation. At the first meeting of the ASTM ad hoc study

group on laboratory accreditation in January of 1984, Mr. William Cavanaugh,

then President, stated, "Although ASTM has had a very successful experience

with the CCRL program, it has always taken the firm position that ASTM's

primary mission is the development of voluntary consensus standards. However,

over the last few years, numerous individuals have commented that it may be

past time to restudy the question of ASTM and laboratory accreditation."

"Today's meeting", he went on to say, "was called to explore the role of ASTM,

if any, in the field of laboratory accreditation with the realization that

ASTM's primary mission is standards." The ad hoc study group, after a wide

range of discussions, recommended the following to the ASTM Board of

Directors:

1. That ASTM become more active in the laboratory accreditation field to

include the ASTM Board reviewing this area and ASTM in general showing more

interest in active involvement.

2. That a number of models be developed of what an accreditation system under

ASTM would look like. These models would address everything from the existing

infrastructure within ASTM through the concept of a large umbrella

organization, keeping in mind the current ASTM committee structure. The

concept of a private/government cooperative effort would also be addressed by

these models.

And finally, the study group recommended that there also needs to be a careful

examination of the advantages and disadvantages of ASTM getting more involved

in accreditation.

As a result of these recommendations, the ASTM Board of Directors created a

Panel on Laboratory Accreditation in September, 1984 to look at the role of

the voluntary standard system and ASTM in laboratory accreditation. The Panel

consisted of three past chairmen of the board of ASTM; Wayne Ellis, the panel

chairman, Rudy Jones and Bryant Mather. As you can see, all three of these

individuals were very experienced in the construction area. The panel

immediately identified the need for certain information and developed a

10
questionnaire that was sent to all ASTM members involved in laboratory

accreditation and others involved in accreditation systems throughout the

country. Now lets take a look at some of these questions. What laboratory

accreditation systems exist now and would ASTM complement these programs or

just add another program? Why is ASTM expected to be more effective than

AALA, NVLAP, or any other existing programs? Are there other organizations

that might like to do what is being proposed by ASTM? Are they likely to do

it better, be better equipped, be more successful? What turf problems are

likely to be troublesome? How can they be dealt with? What relations as an

accreditor of laboratories would ASTM have with the National Bureau of

Standards? What is required from an organizational standpoint to enter this

field? Should ASTM be an accreditor or an accreditor of accreditors?

Finally, what have we learned from the CCRL program which can be transferred

into a successful ASTM laboratory accreditation program? As a result of

responses to this questionnaire, to one on one interviews with numerous people

around the country, and to a thorough review of international and national

activities, the panel recommended the following to the ASTM Board of Directors

in September of 1985; (1) ASTM, the corporation, should not establish another

overall laboratory accreditation system; and (2) the ASTM Board should

establish a system based upon an individual technical committee needs and

competence to direct accreditation activities in a field specific to its

scope. Such an operation would have to be designed to be financially self

supporting and would include a reference laboratory. Lets take a look at the

rationale for these recommendations. First of all, many of the responses to

the Panel's questionnaire expressed concern over any move by ASTM to establish

another layer of accreditation. Others questioned the effectiveness of

ongoing accreditation programs, but wanted ASTM to reduce the proliferation of

accreditation programs and not to add another accreditation layer or another

accreditation authority. Some respondents felt there was no need for a

laboratory accreditation other than that which the government mandates.

Finally, a few respondents wanted greater ASTM involvement, but only through

the establishment of an authority outside the current ASTM system. The

Panel's recommendations reflect those concerns. Furthermore, a system

recommended by the Panel could provide to existing accreditation organizations

a proficiency verification service to augment or supplement present costly

audit and inspection programs.

Finally, I'd like to touch on the recent staff study in terms of implementing

some of these recommendations. The Board requested that staff study the

legal, financial, and administrative aspects of ASTM moving in this direction.

From a legal point of view ASTM counsel offered some preliminary comments and

concerns. There is always a potential impact on ASTM's tax free status,

specifically at the local and state level. In addition to the tax issue, ASTM

needs to be sensitive to an increased liability exposure as a result of

being an accrediting body. Final legal opinion is being reserved until

further policy directions are established by the ASTM Board of Directors.

Staff's financial evaluation up to now has come up to two distinct

conclusions. One is that organizations currently involved in accrediting

laboratories are, generally speaking, not currently generating sufficient

income to meet their needs. Here it is important to separate the concepts of

accreditation and certification. Certification is a very lucrative field.

Accreditation doesn't seem to be as much. Secondly, well defined standard

reference materials calibration systems and laboratory proficiency programs,

such as CCRL's, driven by the needs of the technical committee are marketable

services and have proven to be successful in the marketplace. Therefore, all

1 1
ASTM programs should strive to meet some marketplace needs in order to be

financially self sustaining. That is important, I don't think any association

today should necessarily take on a program if it is not projected to be at

least self sustaining financially.

I would like to conclude by saying that at this time it appears that ASTM is

well positioned to provide technical committees the opportunity to play a role

in laboratory accreditation. As demonstrated by past efforts this interface

should be contributory to an overall system and should not be directly

involved in acts of accreditation. There should be a link-up between the

technical committee and outside accreditation authority. Many outstanding

opportunities exist for ASTM in the expansion of laboratory accreditation

activities and in the creation of a data base in this area. The staff study

will continue between now and the September 1986 Board meeting for the

establishment of specific guidelines for the committees as a major focus of

our efforts. In addition, ASTM staff will further explore the possibilities

that exist in utilizing the standards technology training programs to promote

criteria for training of assessors and other accreditation related personnel.

Of additional interest in this area is early discussions at the ASTM Board of

Directors level of an ASTM Standards Research Institute. This institute could

incorporate, if it ever comes into being, many of the programs I have

mentioned above. It could provide an administrative, financial, and

management system for methods validation, proficiency evaluation, and assessor

and other training needs. So in summary I would like to say ASTM is committed

to many of the components of the laboratory accreditation system and is

actively exploring new possibilities for technical committee interaction with

outside accreditation bodies.

12
AASHTO Staff Views

David J. Hensing

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials is the

national association of the state departments of highways and transportation.

Its members include such departments from all 50 states, the District of

Columbia and Puerto Rico.

In 1973, AASHTO added the "T" to its name and became multi-modal in character.

Its official areas of interest now extend to public transportation, aviation,

rail operations and waterways as well as highways. From its inception in 191^

until 1973, however, its exclusive interest was highways. Since that date,

highways continue to be a principal area of interest in reflection of the

heavy responsibility at the state level for that transportation mode.

One of the original reasons for AASHTO's inception more than 70 years ago was

the desire of the then newly forming state highway departments to compare

experiences and to learn how others were solving problems. That desire and

need continues unabated to the present day. Its modern manifestation in

AASHTO is our list of publications. It includes some 80 technical titles

containing standards, guides, tests and specifications on all aspects of

highway planning, design, construction and operation. AASHTO technical

committees produce and update these documents as technologies develop and

mature in meetings held around the country each year. As you know, many of

these documents are incorporated in the Code of Federal Regulations by

reference and thereby guide the development of the several federal aid highway

systems. Also, many of them are in widespread use outside the United States.

Perhaps, the best known example among this audience is the two-volume set of

AASHTO Material Tests and Specifications produced approximately every four

years with annual updates in the intervening years.

Another longstanding AASHTO activity is the development of national transportation policy positions from the perspective of the states collectively.

AASHTO works hard to establish sound policies based on the extensive

experience of its members in transportation affairs. In turn, the Association

is frequently invited to provide its policy views to various Congressional

committees and subcommittees as they consider national legislation affecting

our transportation systems. We also make such views known to the agencies of

the U.S. Department of Transportation and others in the Executive Branch whose

administrative or regulatory activities impact on transportation.

A third area in which AASHTO is now heavily involved is a number of activities

grouped under the general rubric of Technical Services Programs. These are

voluntary, cooperative efforts — generally technical in nature — in which

groups of our member departments find it mutually advangeous to work together

within the AASHTO structure to accomplish a common purpose or end. The oldest

of these technical service programs now underway is the AASHTO Materials

Reference Laboratory, or AMRL, which is operated here at the National Bureau

of Standards. This is, as you know, a voluntary quality control program,

mainly involving the materials laboratories of our member departments, and

aimed at assuring participating laboratories of their ability to properly and

13
accurately test soils, aggregates and asphaltic materials. Through a cooperative arrangement with the parallel, ASTM-sponsored Cement and Concrete

Reference Laboratory, or CCRL, similar services are afforded with respect to

those and related materials as well.

The AMRL activities are in two basic programs: a reference sample program,

and a physical inspection tour. AMRL has been in existence since 1965. Its

success, I think, is attested to by the fact that all 52 of our member

departments participate in the AMRL programs and routinely contribute

resources to it annually. Beyond this, a number of laboratories from both

public and private non-AASHTO organizations have obtained some or all of the

services offered by AMRL on a fee basis. Recently, that outside activity has

experienced something of a growth spurt, to the point where we have approved a

modest staff increase to accommodate the increased work load. Participating

laboratories receive regular inspection reports and reference sample reports

pertaining to their specific laboratory in which the results are set forth and

any observed variances or deficiencies noted.

The AMRL program is by any measure an unqualified success. We are gathered

together today and tomorrow to examine the question of laboratory

certification or accreditation and, from our perspective at least, how this

might possibly fit into, or otherwise impact, our present inspection and

reference sample program. We applaud the decision to hold this conference to

explore these matters. While it seems that certifying a laboratory

participating in our program might be a simple matter, further reflection

results in some questions to which we, at least, do not have ready answers.

For instance what, exactly, would a certification program be certifying? That

certain procedures and equipment were being correctly applied on a given day?

That the personnel had adequate training and experience? What about noted

deficiencies? What kind of follow-up would be required? How frequently must

inspections be made to continue a certification? What procedures must be

followed to decertify a laboratory whose performance has fallen to

unacceptably low levels?

Beyond such practical or technical questions, we are interested in exploring

potential legal questions as well. One of these, of course, is the question

of liability. To what potential liability risks would AASHTO be exposed by

its conduct of, or participation in, a certification program? What similar

risks would our member departments bear, either collectively or individually,

either through AASHTO or apart from it? Secondly, we feel the need to explore

questions relating to anti-trust or restraint of trade statutes in recognition

of the fact that voluntary standards setting and certifying organizations need

to establish procedures and safeguards to assure comportment with such

statutes. Our general counsel, Mr. Jim Anderson, is in the audience and will

be speaking to you this afternoon on these very questions.

We know that certification programs have long existed and that these and many

other questions have been successfully dealt with. We are here to learn and

listen over the next two days to the views of your speakers and you on such

questions and issues in the context of the highway building materials with

which we are concerned.

In closing, I emphasize again that, in AASHTO's view, our AMRL laboratory is

functioning well, and is achieving the goals we have set for it. At the same

time, we are aware that there is interest in certification programs, and feel

14
it is our responsibility to listen to those proposals and take part in related

discussions. If it becomes clear that AASHTO should consider changes in our

AMRL Laboratory and its procedures to accommodate a certification program, or

that AASHTO should become involved in some other manner with certification,

then I am certain that our policy committee will take up the issue.

In order for change to occur within AASHTO on what we believe is a major area

of interest, it would be necessary to obtain the support of at least twothirds of our member departments. Before considering taking action, we would

want to answer four overriding questions:

1 . Why is a change desirable?

2. What specific benefits would flow to our member departments

from changing to a certification program and, conversely, what

benefits, if any, would arise from not changing?

3. What potential liabilities might our member departments and the

Association face because of changing to a certification program?

4. What would be the cost impact on our member departments of a

certification program?

To these four basic questions, of course, must be added the several other

questions I posed earlier, and probably many more. We hope this meeting will

provide responses to these questions, and that at the end of these two days

everyone here will more clearly understand the issues so that we can jointly

chart out a course of action.

15
State of the Art of Laboratory Accreditation Procedures in the

National and International Levels

John Locke

American Association of Laboratory Accreditation

These discussions on national and international standards activities related

to laboratory accreditation are intended to be very broad. All fields of

testing, not just construction materials, are discussed to put activities in

construction materials in perspective for further deliberations on the

specific aspects of accreditation.

Laboratory Accreditation in the United States

First a very few words about the current status of laboratory accreditation in

the United States. Charles Hyer of the Marley Organization, who is in the

audience today, is trying to keep up with the various laboratory accreditation

systems in operation in the United States today. He has a tracking system he

calls the Principle Aspects of U.S. Laboratory Accreditation Systems

(PAUSLAS). He tries to keep up to date on the newly developed systems and the

changes in the systems, and offers the updates as a service which keeps people

abreast of what is going on in this country. I think that it is a very useful

method for understanding laboratory accreditation and how it is evolving.

One impression that you receive from following these updates is that there is a considerable and growing interest in laboratory accreditation system

development across the board. New formal systems are being developed here,

there and almost everywhere; laboratory accreditation is not something that

people are out trying to market, it is being requested in the marketplace.

Many different types of organizations are trying to fulfill this need to the

satisfaction of a wide variety of users who are expressing particular

interests and needs. I have to agree with Walter Kunze that there is not a lot of money in the accreditation business, so it is not a matter of people

out there trying to develop laboratory accreditation systems because of some

pot of gold. They are out there because users want them.

There is very little cooperation among the various laboratory accreditation

systems which creates a problem for the testing laboratories. Testing

laboratories which have a broad range of capability may have to participate in

several systems which may be expensive. Again, these systems are evolving

because of user demand.

Laboratory Accreditation Technology in the United States

I would like to now focus on the technology of accreditation which is evolving

beginning with the state-of-the-art in the United States. Peter Brown of ASTM

referenced Committee E36 and the fact that it has several standards related to

laboratory accreditation. There is E329 which will be described in a talk

directly after mine. There is Standard E548 which provides guidelines for

committees of ASTM or anyone else to use in establishing criteria for

laboratory accreditation. There are a number of us in the accreditation

community who have been saying that this document needs to be a stronger

document. We need to have a general criteria which is going to be used

1 6
consistently across the fields of testing. Subcommittee E36.10 met in

Philadelphia yesterday and agreed to look at international standards such as

ISO Guide 25 and 38 in an attempt to define general criteria that could be

adopted verbatum by various laboratory accreditation systems. We also talked

about the need for differentiating between a general criteria and a specific

criteria, where the specific criteria deals with the unique requirement in

particular fields of testing, such as areas and classes of testing, and even

test methods. ASTM E994 is a new standard which describes what should be the

ingredients of a good laboratory accreditation system.

The other ASTM committees that Peter Brown referenced, some twenty or more,

are addressing the issue of specific criteria for a particular measurement

technology. What should be in place in the laboratory in order to qualify the

laboratory as a competent laboratory? By the way, the definition of

laboratory accreditation is the formal recognition of the competence of a

testing laboratory to do certain tests or types of tests. That is an

international definition generally accepted throughout the world.

Committee E36 has several other projects currently underway. Committee E36

met on Monday and Tuesday of this week and I will try to summarize the kinds

of issues dealt with as I go along. One issue is in the field of testing.

How can we describe the areas of testing in some sort of consistent way which

might provide a relationship between laboratory accreditation systems and

different testing areas? This is of particular interest in establishing

laboratory accreditation systems directories and defining the scope of a

laboratory's accreditation. There was good progress made in this area at the

E36 meeting on Monday. There is some more work to be done, but we will have a

document that's worthy of E36 committee ballot before the next meeting.

There is a task force on proficiency testing looking at criteria for

conducting such testing. What are the basic ingredients of proficiency

testing as used in laboratory accreditation systems? A preliminary document

has been prepared for review and will be revised based on task force comments.

The document is based on some material that comes out of ISO, but it goes much

farther

There is Subcommittee E36.3O on nomenclature. We have been struggling with

nomenclature since the committee was established and have not had very much

success in coming up with a document. But there are many definitions,

international as well as national, which are beginning to be recognized as the

most useful and appropriate definitions. With this work we are moving towards

development of a document which will provide some help in the terminology

area.

Laboratory Accreditation Internationally

I would now like to talk about what is taking place internationally in terms

of laboratory accreditation systems operations. A signficant development from

my point of view is the laboratory accreditation system operated by the

British over the last few years. They have had a calibration service, the

British Calibration Service (BCS), in existence since 1966. They began a

laboratory accreditation system, National Testing Laboratory Accreditation

Scheme (NATLAS), about four years ago. Just recently they integrated these

two systems under one service called the National Measurement Accreditation

Service (NAMAS). The NATLAS was started with a consolidation of five

17
different systems In the U.K.

This integration of systems has required the expenditure of considerable time

and money over the past year in upgrading their documentation. I believe

their efforts have been very effective. In fact, almost all national and

international systems have invested considerable time in the past year

improving the documentation, including their general and specific criteria,

and procedures for accrediting laboratories. Many countries now are focusing

on improvements and consolidation of existing systems and a decrease in the

development of new systems.

Internationally there seems to be a gathering together of the accreditation

process under fewer and fewer banners. There are new national laboratory

accreditation systems developing in other countries including Italy, Norway,

the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Spain, and Ireland. Other countries such as

Bangladesh and India are exploring new concepts for accrediting testing

facilities

.

Laboratory Accreditation Technology Internationally

The technology of accreditation on the International scene seems to be leading

the work done in the United States and it is a source of information,

standards and guidance. The driving force behind this work is the

International Laboratory Accreditation Conference (ILAC). This is an ad hoc

assembly of laboratory accreditation practitioners from around the world which

meets every one to two years. ILAC has a number of task forces which address

the different aspects of technology of laboratory accreditation and try to

develop related documents. ILAC is not a formal international organization

and does not produce documents that are classified as international standards.

It does produce documents that are suitable as base reference in the evolution

of a standard by other organizations — prestandard documents if you will.

The funding for each ILAC meeting is met by the attendees with the host

country supplying some resources such as meeting facilities. The U. S. is

represented by Stanley Warshaw from the National Bureau of Standards and he

publishes a meeting notice in the Federal Register prior to the meeting and

anyone who is interested and willing to pay his way, including the modest fee

at the conference, is invited to come. Several ILAC Task Groups will be

meeting in Geneva later this week. Task Force C has developed most of the

working papers. It started out with a description of the objectives for

laboratory accreditation in a 1978 document. The Task Force addressed the

common question of why an accreditation system is needed and developed

criteria for the accreditation of laboratories. These criteria were taken by

the International Standards Organization (ISO) CERTICO committee and ISO

Guide 25 "General Requirements for the Technical Competence of Testing

Laboratories" evolved. The ILAC work was a precursor to a criteria for

accrediting laboratories.

Documents developed by ILAC are generally supported by the participating

organizations because of the way ILAC operates. After a task force develops a

document, it presents the document to the ILAC Plenary Conference where the

document is approved if agreement is reached. If someone objects at the

Plenary Conference and the differences cannot be resolved, the document is

withdrawn and sent back to the Task Force for more development. When a

document comes from ILAC as a publication of the conference it has to be

basically agreed upon by everybody that attends. Voting in ILAC is by nation.

18
Dr. Warshaw consults with other U.S. members of the delegation and casts one

vote for the United States.

There is another ILAC task force (Task Force D) on calibration since there was

concern on how to incorporate the requirement for calibration? in a laboratory

accreditation system operation. A document was developed which probably does

not serve that purpose very well, but it was found acceptable as kind of an

initial document in the area. It was published by the International

Organization for Legal Metrology (OIML). This is another case where the work

of ILAC is reviewed by some other organization, modified somewhat, and then

published as their document. A proficiency testing document developed by ILAC

Task Force C became the basis of ISO Guide 43 on Proficiency Testing. Another

document on administrative procedures and forms was developed, and although it

has not been accepted as an international standard by some other organization

to date, it has been included in the "Collected Reports 1979-1983" of the

committee which were prepared and distributed by ISO. This collection

includes reports on specific technological areas which represent a kind of a

history of some of the work of ILAC Task Force C over the last 6 or 7 years.

ILAC has done a considerable amount of work on terminology. This eventually

lead to the development of 16 definitions. ISO in its Guide 2 presents a very

extensive set of definitions relating to product certification and laboratory

accreditation and includes the terms that were presented by ILAC.

The U. K. has been especially Interested in the selection and training of

assessors which is a difficult task because the capabilities of individual

assessors must be matched with the needs and testing capabilities of

laboratories and the procedures of the accreditation system. NAMAS developed

a very successful training course and presented it through a university. The

Australians have developed a whole manual on assessors. It is fair to say

that the work of ILAC has led to some consistency in this area.

In other areas, ILAC has prepared an international directory of laboratory

accreditation systems and a document on the content of a laboratory's quality

control manual. There was considerable discussion and disagreement on the

latter document. Representatives from one country wanted to describe the

specific form and substance of such a manual. Representatives of another

country believed that the manual should be written by the laboratory in

whatever sequence it finds most useful in its own quality control procedures.

In the end an alphabetical listing of all the things that should be in the

manual was presented and then an appendix was provided which described one way

to present the form and substance.

Bilateral and multilateral agreements are being addressed in Task Force F of

ILAC. This covers the political relationship among laboratory accreditation

systems of different countries and how testing capabilities from one country

should be recognized by a second. It focuses more on the political process

than on the technical process. Much of the work done by ILAC Task Force C was

to establish a common technical process so that we all start doing things the

same way. But Task Force C does not get involved in the political process

which is concerned with liability laws, restraint of trade, etc.

Task Force G is now developing documents on accreditation systems and bodies.

What is a good laboratory accreditation system? What is a good laboratory

accreditation body? It is a pre-standard standard being developed by the

19
French with considerable input from people in the United States. It is in the

final phases of development and appears to be a very good document. I would

like to certainly present that information to Committee E36 to see if there is

some interest in it. It was built, at least in part, on the E36 Standard

E994.

There are additional issues related to laboratory accreditation being worked

on by ILAC. These are:

- Complaints and disputes - How does a laboratory handle complaints and

disputes and what should be the basic criteria?

- Surveillance of accredited laboratories (reassessment) - What kind of

standard procedure should be used?

- Accreditation for site testing - If a permanent laboratory is

recognized, what is the status of its temporary laboratories in the

field and what about mobile laboratories? An excellent document has

been developed which is about a month old which deals with this Issue.

- Quality control charts and their use. - Can quality control charts be

required which would eliminate or minimize some of the reliance on

proficiency testing which is very expensive?

- Directories - We tried for two years within ILAC to come to some

agreement on how we are going to treat directories without much success

so far.

- Traceability and Measurements - If a laboratory makes a measurement

should it link back to the national standards and if so, how? What is

involved in that process?

ILAC and E36 provide considerable background in the technology of laboratory

accreditation which can be used as we strive for coordination among accreditation systems in the United States.

20
The Status of ASTM E329 and Other Related Standards

Spencer Thew

Atlantic Testing Labs, Ltd.

I would like to discuss the purpose of ASTM Standard E329 and how it is used

by the construction community. It's very important that we have a document

like E329 that can be used in the marketplace by the laboratories providing

construction materials testing and inspection services, by people retaining

the laboratories, and by people evaluating the laboratories. There are many

applications of this particular standard. I will be discussing the history of

E329, reviewing its scope, and summarizing current activities and the use of

the standard by the construction community. ASTM Committee E36 (Subcommittee

E36.93) met in Philadelphia these past two days and spent considerable time on

ASTM E329.

E329 was developed in 1967 as an ASTM Recommended Standard Practice. The

title at that time was "Standard Recommended Practice for Inspection and

Testing Agencies for Concrete, Steel, and Bituminous Materials as Used in

Construction." The "as used in construction" in the title is significant and

it should be remembered. The document continued to be reapproved without

change through 1977. About 1980-81 there were feelings within ASTM E36 that

there should be a review of the E329 document. At that time there was a lot

of work being done on E548, "Standard Practice in Preparation of Criteria for

Use in the Evaluation of Testing Laboratories in Inspection Bodies, which was

discussed earlier today by John Locke. Committee members wanted to bring E329

into conformance with E5^8 so there would be better meshing of the documents.

There were also some other relevant things happening in other ASTM committees

at the same time. Committee DH, under the leadership of Conway Burton, had

developed Standard D3666 prior to 1981 which is entitled "Standard Practice

for Evaluation of Inspection and Testing Agencies for Bituminous Paving

Materials." There was also a standard on the books for soil and rock (D37^0),

developed by Committee D18. The sections in E329 on steel and concrete are

somewhat out of date. There were some people within the industry that wanted

to do something about these two construction materials, as well as masonry.

And what I am really addressing now, as you can see, are the major

construction materials. This was mentioned earlier today and while there may

be different ideas as to what materials comprise "major construction

materials," there are at least five materials (soil, concrete, bituminous,

steel and masonry) for sure, with possibly wood being another.

It is important to remember that E329 has been used, and used successfully by

many agencies, consultants, and laboratories. It is a document that is widely

accepted. While it provides a procedure for evaluation of laboratories doing

concrete work through the CCRL program, there really wasn't any other body

looking at the other construction materials. AMRL was, however, referenced in

the bituminous document, D3666.

It should be remembered that E329» like all ASTM standards, is a voluntary

standard and is only made mandatory if an owner, a municipality, a government

agency, an evaluation authority, or whomever, decides to make it so.

E329 was reapproved in 1982 with the understanding that it would be reviewed

21
and revised so that it could be even more widely used. In other words, bring

it from the 1967 language to the current state-of-the-art to make it even more

useful in the marketplace. This commitment was important when the vote was

taken in Committee E36 to reapprove Standard E329. We knew it would be a

tough task and we gave ourselves a couple of years to accomplish that review

and prepare a new standard. Chuck Britzius was the chairman of Subcommittee

E36.93 which is responsible for E329. He formed a task force to begin the

review. This work resulted in complete revisions of Sections 1 through 8 and

a change of the name of the document to "Standard Recommended Practice for Use

in the Evaluation of Testing and Inspection Agencies as Used in Construction."

Sections 1 through 8 provide generic type criteria. These sections have been

balloted three times at Subcommittee level and one time at E36 Main Committee,

with the last ballot at Subcommittee and Main Committee being taken

concurrently on May 1 of this year. The negatives were considered at the E36

meeting in Philadelphia earlier this week and the decisions of the

Subcommittee were upheld. Sections 1 through 8 were approved. E329, Sections

1 through 8 will be revised to reflect these changes and will be processed

through ASTM.

Sections 1 through 8 provide information of a generic type. The theory that

the subcommittee is currently working under is that each one of the major

construction materials should have a committee developing specific criteria

and that in fact is happening. I will not give you all the ASTM committee

numbers, but basically there are existing standards for bituminous materials

and soils, and there is work underway for concrete, steel, and masonry. You

will hear more later from Jack Roebuck about the work in Committee C9 on

concrete. Therefore, all of the five major construction materials are

currently being addressed. The way that we propose to use the specific

criteria developed by these committees is to reference them in ASTM E329.

Standard D3666 which provides specific information for bituminous testing

laboratories would be referenced in E329 if someone really wants to get

specific criteria for that material. This indicates that the materials

standards relate to the criteria established by E329 which is consistent with

Standard E548.

Let's take a look at some of the specific information provided in Sections 1 through 8 of the revised E329. I have already talked about the title of the

the document which indicates that the practice provides criteria for the

operation and evaluation of a technically oriented testing agency or

inspection agency. Standard E548 is referenced and there is a "Significance

and Use" section which discusses purpose and relationships. This section

states "This Recommended Practice provides the necessary criteria for

selecting and retaining a testing agency or inspection agency which will

execute a quality control or quality assurance program as related to

construction practices or materials." The project sponsor or project

sponsor's representative may use this document to aid in the selection

process. If they elect not to use E329 and take advantage of what we think to

be the excellent "criteria", that is their business. Duties and

responsibilities are defined under "Scope" where minimum requirements are

established for personnel and the equipment of materials testing and

inspection agencies.

There must be a spirit of cooperation between Subcommittee E36.93 which is

revising E329 and the other ASTM committees writing the specific criteria for

various construction materials. For example in the section on "Terminology"
!

in the revised E329» we define concrete. The people who are writing the

specific standard for concrete in C9 have their definition of -concrete. When

the C9 standard is in place, the terminology in E329 will be revised

accordingly. These are very easy changes to make. However, it is important

that certain terms such as "agency", "authority", and "project sponsor" be the

same in all documents. We'd like to make all the terminology similar even

though it is a difficult task. We currently are working on coordinating with

all the documents that will be referenced in E329 to try and get similar

terminology. It is important that "agency" as defined in E329 is the same as

the definition in D3666 and the other specific standards.

Other sections in the revised E329 standard are related to organization of the

agency. The document references E548 by stating "Items in ASTM E5^8 regarding

the organization of the agency shall be considered in developing the specific

criteria." By this we are promoting consideration of E5M8 when specific

criteria are being developed for various construction materials. Again, we

are trying to obtain uniformity between related documents.

In the area of human resources, Section 5 of the revised E329 provides some

minimum requirements for personnel. We know this will generate a lot of

discussion in the subcommittees providing specific criteria for various

materials. One of these issues is the criteria that "when services are being

provided for construction, the laboratory must be under the direction of a

licensed engineer." This was in the original E329 and is believed to be very

important for laboratories testing and inspecting major construction

materials. E329 has a requirement that the supervising laboratory technician

have five years minimum experience. Field supervising technicians also

require a minimum experience of five years. We know that this is going to be

controversial, but hopefully it will generate discussion and we can work

together to reach a satisfactory conclusion. Some people may want to make the

requirements much more stringent than what is provided in E329. Hopefully,

that would be the case instead of the other way around. Other items covered

in Sections 1 through 8 are the materials resources, the quality system, and

the responsibilities and duties of the testing and/or inspection agency.

The plans are to use the Sections 9 through of E329 to refer to the

documents of other ASTM committees that have been specifically prepared for

the different construction materials. Unfortunately, there are some

irregularities in these specific documents because of the delay in revising

E329. Currently there is a document being prepared on masonry which because

they did not have the guidance of the revised E329, contains differences in

terminology. Of necessity, they logically began developing their own

terminology. Key terms such as accreditation, evaluation agency and authority

vary from those in the revised E329. This illustrates what we are trying to

accomplish in Subcommittee E36.93 by preparing a revised E329 Standard. When

one uses an ASTM document relating to masonry, concrete, soil, bituminous or

steel they should all be similar in format and terminology.

In summary, the E329 document is beneficial to committees writing standards,

those using the standards to evaluate testing and inspection agencies, those

using or selecting testing and inspection agencies in the marketplace, and

especially the testing and inspection agencies themselves. It provides a

"road map" for the systematic evaluation of a construction materials testing

and inspection agency with the ASTM committees having the technical expertise

23
for specific construction materials providing the criteria necessary for

testing and inspection of these materials.

24
Status of NVLAP Activities Related to Construction Materials

Robert Gladhill

National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program

NVLAP was established in 1976 as the national program to accredit testing

laboratories. The program is administered by the National Bureau of Standards

under the direction of the Office of Product Standards Policy. Accreditation

is granted to laboratories to perform specific standard test methods, such as

those of ASTM or ANSI. NVLAP is fully self-sufficient through collection of

fees from participating laboratories.

NVLAP provides national recognition of the competence of testing laboratories

based on defined, written criteria. Generic criteria address an

organization's quality systems, personnel, and recordkeeping. Specific

criteria address unique requirements in a given technical area, including test

equipment and procedures. Assessment of a construction materials testing

laboratory would differ from that of a laboratory which performs radiation

dosimetry or carpet testing and this difference would be reflected in the

specific criteria. These criteria are not developed by NVLAP staff, but by

technical experts in relevant testing fields through activities such as public

workshops. All interested parties, primarily laboratories and users of

laboratories thus have an opportunity to have an equal input and assure a

truly representative program.

When a laboratory meets all of the NVLAP criteria, NBS issues a certificate of

accreditation which includes the scope for which the laboratory is

specifically accredited. For example, in the area of concrete testing, a

certificate would list those specific methods for which the laboratory was

assessed and found competent to perform.

NVLAP publishes an annual directory which contains the names and addresses of

all accredited laboratories and the specific scopes of their accreditation.

This directory is widely distributed nationally and internationally. It is

sent to NVLAP accredited laboratories and organizations such as code groups,

state regulatory agencies, architectural firms and trade associations. Anyone

who is contemplating using or specifying a laboratory for any type of service

can therefore refer to this directory and determine if there are NVLAP

accredited laboratories capable of performing the required type of testing.

NVLAP currently has accreditation programs for thermal insulation, concrete,

carpeting, solid fuel burning devices (woodstoves), acoustic measurements,

electromagnetic compatibility, photographic film, radiation dosimetry and

commercial products, which includes paint and paper testing. All of these

programs have been established in response to a request from an individual or

organization and after a determination that an accreditation program was

needed in the specific area. The concrete program, requested several years

ago, was established after several public forums developed the specific scope

and criteria.

NVLAP has bilateral agreements with national systems in other countries which

provide reciprocal recognition of accreditations. Pertinent test reports

provided by a NVLAP accredited laboratory will be accepted as if they were

25
produced by an accredited laboratory in the agreeing country. Similarly, data

provided by an accredited laboratory in the other country will be accepted

here as if it were provided by a NVLAP laboratory.

The evaluation process that NVLAP uses consists of two basic elements: an onsite evaluation and proficiency testing. The on-site visits are generally

conducted on a two year cycle. A technical expert, generally a peer assessor

who is recognized as an expert in the field, is sent to the laboratory. These

assessors are not NBS personnel, but are under contract to NVLAP and are

predominantly from the private sector. NVLAP currently has MO assessors, five

of whom are (non NBS) government employees. The assessors also provide advice

concerning development of criteria, changes occurring in the industry, and

other technical issues. If disagreements occur between an assessor and a

laboratory, a panel of technical experts is convened to discuss and resolve

the issue.

The on-site visit is conducted against a checklist which delineates specific

requirements with which the laboratory must comply. This assures uniformity

in assessing all laboratories. A regularly scheduled on-site visit is

conducted every two years, with additional monitoring visits as required.

Unscheduled monitoring visits to a laboratory may occur at any time.

Laboratory performance is also monitored through proficiency testing,

differing from one program to another. A laboratory may be sent an artifact

with instructions for testing and be required to return the data to NVLAP, or

they may be required to participate in a reference sample program. Data from

individual laboratories are compared to data from other laboratories doing the

same types of testing. In some cases, laboratories are rated by comparing

their results to precision and accuracy statements that can be applied to the

tests.

The proficiency testing program for the concrete LAP requires laboratories to

maintain data on the coefficient of variation of concrete cylinder strength

and to periodically send test data to NVLAP. By doing so they can detect

trends in their test results and pinpoint problems in their operations. We

have been told how valuable this is in assisting laboratories to identify

problems in their day-to-day operations.

Statistical analyses that compare results of each laboratory to all other

participants are issued in NVLAP reports. Each laboratory is sent an analysis

of its individual performance and an analysis of the group performance of all

participating laboratories. These reports are also given to standards

committees for consideration in changing standard methods, or developing

precision and accuracy statements. Information is also disseminated to trade

groups to be helpful in upgrading the technology.

NVLAP staff participate in technical standards committees where appropriate.

To the extent possible, NVLAP activities are coordinated with those of other

organizations to take advantage of existing programs. The AMRL/CCRL reference

sample programs are good examples of activities that could be utilized in the

NVLAP program.

NVLAP has recently been requested to expand the concrete LAP to include

construction materials testing. Specifically, the inclusion of soils and

bituminous products was requested since these very often are tested at the

26
3ame laboratory. The comments that have been received as a result of Federal

Register notices, and information that has been published in magazines, has

for the most part been positive. By all indications, A NVLAP accreditation

program is apparently needed. A large number of test methods have been

proposed for inclusion in the program. Other test methods may be added on

request

One potential problem in operating a construction materials testing program

may be the availability of peer assessors qualified to perform on-site

assessments over the entire range of testing activities. To the extent

possible, we would like to use one peer with a broad knowledge of several

construction materials areas. However, more than one assessor may be required

for laboratories that are highly diversified.

In summary, a national accreditation program appears to be needed for

laboratories that test construction materials. NVLAP has been requested to

develop such a program and is actively pursuing that goal. Anyone who has

comments on the subject should contact: NVLAP, National Bureau of Standards,

Admin A531, Gaithersburg, MD 20899.

27
Status of AALA Activities Related to Construction Materials

John Locke

American Association of Laboratory Accreditation

The American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (AALA) is a non-profit

membership organization dedicated to the formal recognition of testing

organizations which have been shown to be competent. This is the definition

of laboratory accreditation. AALA accreditation is available to all

laboratories whether they are owned by private companies or government bodies.

We have some of both in the program.

AALA was formed in 1978 by a group of concerned individuals to develop a

management system to verify competence of a wide variety of testing

organizations. It is a membership organization open to all persons Interested

in quality testing and as such we invite people to join the Association and

become involved in the development of its programs. A fact sheet (available

at the Conference) describing AALA is attached.

AALA is governed by a Board of Directors whose membership is representative of

industry, laboratories, government and the professions. The Board of

Directors maintains two councils. The Criteria Council manages, administers

and interprets the criteria documents developed for each program. The

Accreditation Council makes final recommendations for granting, denying or

terminating accreditation based on assessment and evaluation provided by the

AALA staff and assessors. Appeals of any accreditation action are made first

to that Council and then to the Board of Directors if necessary.

Most of the AALA resources are used to monitor the performance of the

laboratories. When a laboratory seeks accreditation, it is advised of the

requirements for granting accreditation. After a laboratory submits an

application for accreditation, an assessor performs an on-site visit to audit

the administration, staffing, test procedures, equipment, and other aspects

related to quality. (See attached diagram of the accreditation process.)

Additional visits are made when there are significant changes made to the

scope of the work in the laboratory. The initial accreditation is normally

granted for two years, and one year after the initial accreditation the

laboratory is requested to provide updated information on laboratory

personnel. The laboratory will be reassessed in the second year with a

procedure very similar to the assessment conducted initially. Accredited

laboratories are entitled to indicate AALA endorsement on their general

correspondence and their test reports, as long as the reports are for tests

for which they have been explicitly accredited.

AALA is funded by dues from members, fees charged to the laboratory seeking

accreditation, and gifts made on behalf of the work of the Association.

Accreditation fees are in two parts; one for the management of the system, the

other for assessor fees.

AALA has about 71 laboratories currently accredited in 19 states. It has

granted accreditation in the following fields of testing: biology, chemistry,

construction materials, geotechnology, electrical, mechanical, non-destructive

testing and thermal areas of testing. Our job is to develop the procedure for

28
accrediting laboratories for the work that they do. We try to be flexible

with the laboratories specifically identifying the tests or types of tests

that they perform and for which they seek accreditation. The reason for this

flexibility is that identifying specific tests in some fields of testing is

not always straightforward. For example, tests from textbooks and equipment

manufacturers are often used in chemical testing and the flexible approach to

identifying test methods we have tried to build into the AALA system permits

us to more clearly depict a laboratory's competence.

The Chairman of the Board of AALA is Gladys Berchtold. She is also the

Chairman of the Board of Standards Laboratories and the current Chairman of

the ASTM Board of Directors. The Vice-Chairman is John Blair of DuPont. The

Secretary-Treasurer is Chester Grant from General Motors. Other members of

the Board include Bob Belfit, formerly with Dow Chemical now with Omni-Tech

International, Albert Chabek - American Gas Association, Tom Flint - American

Plywood Association, Howard Forman - formerly with the Department of Commerce,

and Rohm and Haas, John Grant - formerly with AMOCO Research Laboratory, Ray

Hauser with Hauser Laboratories, Earl Hess - Lancaster Laboratories, Richard

Kuchnicki from the Council of American Building Officials, Robert Peach - Consultant (formerly with Sears and Roebuck), David Reyes-Guerra with the

Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Lou Rossi with PSE & G an

electrical utility laboratory, Duke Schuerer with US Steel Corporation, and

Grover Williams - Trinity Engineering and Testing Organization.

There has been a change in the management of the Association. I was named

Executive Director on the 1st of April and I have assumed that responsibility

full time as of the 1st of May, so I have been on the job for about two weeks.

Our first priority is to assess our accredited laboratories as their

reaccreditations become due. To do this, we will be identifying and training

new assessors, preparing and monitoring their visits to the laboratories,

submitting their findings to the Accreditation Council for decision and

granting accreditation where approved. Our next priority is to improve all

documentation so that our operations are clear and our application forms are

easy to follow. We will be announcing new programs: environmental testing,

coal, plastics, and automotive are examples. We will be encouraging

membership in the Association; AALA is a professional society. Finally, we

will be trying to increase the awareness of the testing and user community in

the value of the AALA recognition of competence.

The AALA offices are located across the street from the National Bureau of

Standards at 656 Quince Orchard Road, #704. Everyone is welcome to visit us

at any time.

29
American Association For Laboratory Accrcditatic

FACT SHEET

The AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR LABORATORY ACCREDITATION (AALA) is a nonprofit,

scientific, membership organization dedicated to the formal recognition

of testing organizations which have achieved a demonstrated level of

competence. Accreditation is available to all laboratories regardless of

whether they are owned by private companies or government bodies. The

essential requirement is competence.

AALA was formed in 1978 by a group of concerned individuals as a practical

and efficient organization to develop and manage a system to verify and

recognize qualified testing laboratories. Accreditation is available for

all types of tests, measurements and observations which are reproducible

and properly documented.

Membership in AALA is open to all persons interested in quality testing

services. Members pay dues, receive a periodic newsletter, and attend

annual meetings and symposia sponsored by the Association.

Laboratory accreditation. supports the needs of both users of testing data

and the laboratories which produce those data. Briefly stated, the needs

are

:

- recognized sources of competent testing services

- assurance of internal quality control testing competence

- attesting to purchasing and regulatory agencies

- as support to product certification operations

Laboratories

:

- quality assurance of operations

- marketing demonstrated performance

- overall improvement in the quality and efficiency of operations

656 Quince Orchard Road • #704 • Gaithersburg, Ml) 20878 • 301-670-1377

30

WHY?

Users
HOW?

LABORATORY ACCREDITATION INVOLVES:

Developing and maintaining defined criteria for the operation of

laboratories, appropriate to each kind of testing

Examining applicant laboratories in terms of these criteria, and

ensuring that accredited laboratories maintain this level of performance

AALA is governed by a Board of Directors whose membership represents

interests of industry, laboratories, government, and the professions.

The Board maintains two councils.

The Criteria Council oversees the development and interpretation of

criteria documents. The general criteria used by AALA are from the

international standard ISO/IEC Guide 25 "General Requirements for

the Technical Competence of Testing Laboratories" and are basically

equivalent to the U.S. practice found in ASTM E-548 - 84 "Standard

Practice for the Preparation of Criteria for Use in the Evaluation

of Testing Laboratories and Inspection Bodies". If appropriate,

specific criteria are developed for the fields of testing, specific

testing technologies, specific types of tests, or specific tests.

- The Accreditation Council makes final recommendations for granting,

denying, or terminating accreditation, based on the assessment and

evaluation provided by the AALA staff and assessors. Appeals of

Council decisions are made first to the Council and then to the

Board of Directors.

Much of AALA 1 s resources. are used to monitor the performance of laboratories.

When a laboratory seeks accreditation it is advised of the requirements

for granting accreditation. After an application for accreditation is

submitted, assessors visit the laboratories to examine the administration,

staffing, test procedures, equipment, testing environment, records,

reporting and quality control procedures of the laboratory.

Visits are also made when there is any significant change in the scope of

the work and at scheduled intervals of approximately two years. Laboratory

performance in proficiency testing is also included in evaluating the

laboratories. Laboratories are required to promptly correct any deficiencies

that are disclosed by monitoring visits.

These procedures for accreditation have been adopted to conform with the

recommendations of the International Laboratory Accreditation Conference

(ILAC) which are generally followed by laboratory accreditation systems

throughout the world. AALA's procedures conform to those specified in

ASTM Standard E-994 - 84 "Standard Guide for Laboratory Accreditation

Systems"

Accredited laboratories are entitled to use the AALA endorsement (logo)

on their general correspondence and on their test reports if the tests

covered are included in their scope of accreditation.

31
AALA is funded by dues from members, fees charged to laboratories seeking

accreditation, and donations made on behalf of the work of the Association.

Accreditation fees are separated into management and assessor fees.

Management fees are charged to participating laboratories on a yearly

basis and vary, with the highest fees charged for initial accreditation,

and graduated scale for routine assessments and yearly monitoring.

Additional fees are charged for laboratories in more than one field of

testing

.

Assessor fees are charged only for the actual time and expenses for

assessor(s) at a laboratory site.

AALA has accredited 71 laboratories in 19 states. Accreditation has been

granted in the following fields of testing:

Other more specific programs are being developed in areas such as

environmental testing. Users of accredited laboratories are advised to

seek the specific scope of the accreditation from the laboratory which

identifies the tests or types of test for which the laboratory is accredited.

The Executive Committee of the AALA Board of Directors:

Gladys B. Berchtold, Chairman of the Board. Chairman of the Board

of Standard Laboratories, Inc.

John A. Blair, Vice-Chairman. DuPont.

Chester N. Grant Secretary/Treasurer . General Motors.

Foster C. Wilson, Past Chairman of the Board. Formerly with Owens

Corning Fiberglas.

Carl E. Miller, Chairman of the AALA Criteria Council. Factory

Mutual Research

Leland J. Walker, P.E., Chairman of the AALA Accreditation Council.

Northern Engineering and Testing Co.

Other members of the Board of Directors include:

Robert W. Belfit Jr., PhD., OMNI Tech International Ltd., formerly

with Dow Chemical Co.

Albert J Chabek, American Gas Association Laboratories

Thomas R. Flint, American Plywood Association

Howard I. Forman, PhD., Esq., Consultant, formerly with the Department

of Commerce and Rohm and Haas Co.

John A. Grant, Consultant, formerly with AMOCO.

Ray Hauser, PhD. , Hauser Laboratories

WHO?

Biological

Chemical

Construction Materials

Electrical

Geotechnical

Mechanical

Nondestructive Testing

Thermal

32
Earl Hess, PhD., Lancaster Laboratories

Richard P Kuchnicki, Council of American Building Officials

Robert W. Peach, Consultant, formerly with Sears and Roebuck

David R. Reyes-Guerra, Accreditation Board for Engineering and

Technology

Louis R. Rossi, PSE&G Research Corporation

E. L. Schuerer, U.S. Steel Corporation

Grover C. Williams, Trinity Engineering Testing Corporation.

The Executive Director of the Association is John W. Locke, formerly

manager of the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program at the

National Bureau of Standards.

Offices are located at 656 Quince Orchard Road, #704, Gaithersburg , MD

20878. Telephone is (301) 670-1377. Requests for membership forms and

applications for accreditation are invited.

AALA G1080786

33
ACCREDITATION PROCESS

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR LABORATORY ACCREDITATION

APPLICANT LABORATORY

REQUEST

APPLICATION FORMS

AALA HEADQUARTERS

PREPARE

APPLICATION INFORMATION

SEND APPLICATION PACKAGE & ASSIGN PROFICIENCY

TESTING

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

TO APPLICANT

i

PERFORM

PROFICIENCY

TESTING AS REQUIRED

RESPONDS

AND PAYS COSTS OF ASSESSMENT

YES

PREPARE AND

ASSIGN ASSESSORS

RESULTS OK

PROFICIENCY

TESTING INFO COLLECTED AND ANALYZED

REPORTS

COPIED AND

SENT TO COUNCIL

COUNCIL

NOTIFIED OF APPEAL

BOARD

NOTIFIED AND CASE

FILES FORWARDED

AALA ASSESSORS

AALA

ACCREDITATION COUNCIL

SCHEDULE & PREPARE FOR

VISIT

ASSESSMENT COMPLETED

ANO

REPORTS MADE

ASSESSOR

REIMBURSED

'ACCREDITATION^

DECISION MADE

LAB

NOTIFIED NO

OF RIGHT TO APPEAL

LAB

CERTIFICATE ANO SCOPE

PREPARED AND SENT

YES

NO

DECISION UPHELD

LAB

NOTIFIED OF RIGHT TO APPEAL

1

YES

AALA BOARD

NO

LAB

NOTIFIED OF FINAL DECISION

1

34
Accreditation of Testing Laboratories in Florida

John Roebuck

Florida Mining and Materials Corporation

Concrete is the most widely tested construction material in the world and

sometimes I worry that maybe our problem with concrete testing is that

familiarity breeds contempt. Engineering reports on concrete testing that

have a great deal of engineering significance may not be based on good

testing. This is of added concern since decisions related to code conformance

are made based on the data included in these reports. Concrete testing is not

something done in the back yard with an automobile jack, it is a little more

sophisticated science than that. For over thirty years we have had private

engineers and CCRL inspect laboratories in Florida, we have had

representatives of AALA and NVLAP in the state on a limited basis, and we

still find deficiencies in laboratories testing concrete.

I've had it on my mind for a long time that if in ASTM we have the very best

standard test methods, why do we care so little about how the tests are

performed. The lack of enforcement is where the problem lies. ASTM Standard

E329 has been on the books for over twenty years and everybody specifies it.

For example, ASTM C9^, incorporated in the ACI-318 Building Code, requires

that concrete testing laboratories meet the requirements of E329. E329 is an

excellent document but inadequately enforced. Occasionally when it has been

enforced, it is embarrassing since there are too many deficiencies.

The truth is that we in the concrete industry are disappointed in our testing

and this is what we are concerned with today. We believe that an

accreditation system can improve this. In Florida we had the good fortune to

have an industry association representing about 90% of the concrete and cement

industry. Twenty years ago the Florida Engineering Society and Florida

Institute of Consulting Engineers formed a subsidiary called The Engineering

Laboratories Forum. In 1981 we again brought the problem of inadequate

concrete testing to the attention of the industry and recommended a

cooperative venture between the industry and the laboratories. A preliminary

meeting was held and it was decided to form a new group to improve the quality

of concrete testing in Florida. Within the year the new organization was

incorporated as a nonprofit institution and known as Engineering Laboratories

Forum/Florida Concrete and Products Association (ELF/FCPA) Joint Technical

Committee. Each member group elected six members to serve on a twelve-man

Board of Directors. Co-chairmen were selected, one from industry (FCPA) and

one from the engineers (ELF). Five committees were formed; Disputes

Committee, Training and Inspection Committee, Education Committee, Publicity

Committee, and a Finance Committee. Initial activities involved dissemination

of technical materials from ACI and the preparation of educational

information

Florida has done a great amount of work in the area of field technician

certification over the last four or five years. Our program is based on the

ACI Grade I field technician certification. We provide testing only and let

the training be the responsibility of the employer. We run as many as 50 or

60 technicians on a Saturday morning through the testing program and our

success story has been excellent. The ELF/FCPA supports the program by

35
providing concrete samples, test examiners and proctors. We schedule the

testing in 6 locations throughout Florida annually. Over 40 percent of the

technicians tested in Florida have initially failed the test which consists of

six standard concrete tests.

The ACI program has focused our attention on the problem that we have

neglected the role of training of concrete field technicians. We have tested

over 1500 technicians in the first four years and now have over 700 certified

for competency.

Concurrently with technician testing we embarked on laboratory accreditation.

We found it necessary to prepare a document for use in evaluating the

performance of a testing laboratory. A preliminary document was drafted with

input from the ready mixed concrete industry and the laboratories and we

applied it in the laboratories themselves. We both agreed that there was a

problem since very few laboratories were found to be in compliance with the

document. We decided to use ASTM E329 as our basic guideline document with a

joint group of ELF/FCPA determining which specific areas should be addressed.

The broad areas we picked out for our report included identification of

samples, curing, capping and testing of cylinders, and reporting of data. We

employed a professional engineer as a consultant who had over five years of

testing laboratory experience to perform the assessments.

During the formulation of our program in Florida, Pete Unger of NVLAP

witnessed an inspection and provided advice Including the recommendation that

the inspection must be objective. The Florida program was implemented and it

has been expanded and improved over the three years it has been operating. It

is estimated that Florida has about 200 test laboratories. This includes 110-

120 commercial engineering laboratories, about 50 industry laboratories

(primarily prestressed plants, ready mixed concrete plants, etc.) and about 30

public laboratories. The Department of Transportation and some of the cities

and counties have elected to set up their own concrete test facilities and are

included in the later category. In 1984, the first year of operation, we

managed to have a total of 37 laboratories volunteer for inspection. All but

two finally were approved after correcting their deficiencies. In 1985 this

number went to 53 laboratories which included 40 commercial labs. We are just

beginning our summer inspection program for 1986 and we already have fees paid

for 50 commercial labs and 10 industry labs. We are hoping for 70

laboratories in total.

You may ask how we got about half of the commercial labs volunteering for this

program. We have solicited the major engineering firms in Florida and we have

publicized the program to Florida contractors and builders. We advertise the

fact that there is a better way to get your concrete testing done and that is

by using an approved laboratory in Florida. We are putting commercial ads in

all the major professional bulletins, and we are getting a lot of positive

editorial space in the technical press. We would like to see all the failing

test reports in the future being totally accounted for by concrete problems

and not testing problems. The concrete industry appears to think that this

new program is a step in that direction.

One of the reasons for starting this accreditation program in Florida was the

high cost of utilizing NVLAP or ALAA programs. Our group was set up as a

nonprofit organization with the industry and the engineering fraternity

lending us $25,000 - $30,000 in start up working capital if needed. We had

36
accumulated some funds from implementation of the ACI technician certification

program. We charged $30 a test for the ACI examination while actual out-ofpocket expenses were $5 or $10. The examination staff were primarily

volunteers so we quickly accumulated some cash. We have continued to operate

with a surplus and we spend our excess funds primarily on advertising and to

finance laboratory inspection costs. The actual cost of an accreditation

initially ran $500 per laboratory visit which is made annually. This includes

calibration service on a compression testing machine. This is attractive to

testing laboratories since use of a private calibration service was costing

$250 to $350. Our accreditation program includes verification, calibration

and some minor repairs of the compression machine, and inspection of

facilities and procedures. Electrical or mechanical repairs are not made. We

have been steadily gaining laboratories in the accreditation program to where

we now have about half of the laboratories in Florida participating. We will

have about 60 laboratories this year and the annual fee has been increased to

$525 (our 1985 actual cost). We did lose ten laboratories last year because

they did not wish to pay for the inspection or they felt they could not meet

the requirements. I believe that many of those that are not participating

decided to go into another business which is not a bad idea, because we have

too many seekers of the sunshine in Florida. It might help also if we take

everybody's automobile jack out of their car when crossing the Florida line.

We have many other positive programs that have been developed through this

cooperative venture between industry and the engineering profession which can

be models for the rest of the country. We like the local nature of our

accreditation program. The group running the Florida program might give some

consideration to letting ASTM and AASHT0, whatever organization which has the

strongest connections in the construction specifying industry, create a need

for such accreditation. Neither NVLAP or AALA has the level of laboratory

participation needed which is partially related to the lack of specifier

requirements. The laboratories in Florida enjoy being accredited and there is

peer pressure being exerted. Local specifications are incorporating the

requirement for an accredited laboratory.

A major problem in Florida is the lack of enforcement of the E329 standard.

The status of current revisions being made to E329 and other related standards

activities have been discussed by other speakers. I am chairing ASTM

Subcommittee C09.01.07 which is developing a standard for the evaluation of

concrete testing laboratories. This standard will be referenced by the

revised E329 document as discussed by Spencer Thew.

We have not encountered any problems whatsoever in the legal area. We did

take out a 2 1/2 million dollar liability policy on our Board members. The

one letter of threat came from a laboratory who insisted he was approved by

the U.S. Corps of Engineers which we accepted. However, we did deny to his

request that we include him in our advertising since we do not advertise Corps

of Engineers approval. The laboratory's contention was since he was approved

by the Corps of Engineers he should be listed in our ELF/FCPA accredited

laboratory list.

We have had some problems with deficiencies being found in some of the

compression testing machines in laboratories in the Florida program. These

are related to the C39 tolerance on readability, which is 250 pounds. About a

year and a half ago, we asked the manufacturers what their intention was in

regard to readability, but the issue remains unresolved.

37
Some jurisdictions in South Florida, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale have their own

buildings codes in which they require that a laboratory be Inspected by CCRL.

In our inspections, over the last 15 years, we have found labs who have

complied with their requirements, but as Walt mentioned, the problem is that

many deficiencies found by CCRL are not corrected. We found one laboratory

with seven pages of deficiencies with no corrections, and he was able to

provide services in that area. It was incorrectly assumed by the specifier

that the laboratories were making corrections of noted deficiencies. Only

follow-up accreditation will accomplish this.

The participating laboratories in Florida appreciate our efforts related to

accreditation. They want to do a better job. They are proud of their

approved status as compared to some of their peers who have elected not to

join the program. We are still having the problem of both publicizing the

good guys and being careful not to offend the bad ones. We have made some

great strides in the last several years and thank you for your interest in our

program.

38
Construction Materials Reference Laboratories at BBS

James H. Pielert

Construction Materials Reference Laboratories, NBS

Programs of the Construction Materials Reference Laboratories (CMRL) will be

discussed along with highlights of recent changes which have made them more

responsive to the needs of the construction community.

CMRL consists of the Cement and Concrete Reference Laboratory (CCRL) and the

AASHTO Materials Reference Laboratory (AMRL). CCRL was established at the

National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in 1929 as a Research Associate Program

sponsored by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) [1,2].

Similarly, AMRL was established at NBS under the sponsorship of the American

Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) [3,M].

The goal of CMRL is to promote improvement in the quality of testing of

construction materials in the nation's testing laboratories. The Inspection

of construction materials testing laboratories and the distribution of

proficiency samples are the primary activities of CMRL. Two complementary

activities are the study of testing problems related to construction

materials, and participation in the work of the technical committees of ASTM,

AASHTO, and the American Concrete Institute (ACI). This later activity

provides a direct link between the users and developers of standards. CCRL is

primarily supported by fees paid by users of the laboratory inspection and the

proficiency sample services. AMRL is supported by funds provided by State

Departments of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration. There

is increasing use of AMRL services by independent testing laboratories who are

willing to pay the specified fees.

CCRL and AMRL have oversight committees; the Joint ASTM C1/C9 Subcommittee on

the CCRL chaired by Walter Kunze and the AASHTO Subcommittee on Materials for

AMRL chaired by Garland Steele.

The scope of the CMRL inspection services has evolved over the years to be

responsive to the needs of the construction industry. The programs of the

CCRL are involved with portland and masonry cement, portland cement concrete,

concrete aggregates, and reinforcing steel. There is currently a plan to

introduce a pozzolan inspection activity beginning early in 1987. The AMRL is

involved with materials related to the transportation industry including

bituminous materials and mixtures, aggregates, soils, metals, and verification

of highway friction testing equipment. It is also possible that in the next

year AMRL may become involved with verification of road roughness measuring

devices

The CCRL and AMRL operate under policies established by their sponsors and

NBS. The inspection service is limited to laboratories using the standard

methods of test prepared by ASTM (CCRL) and AASHTO (AMRL). The concrete

inspection program is based on the ASTM Standard E329 and the bituminous and

soils programs are based on ASTM Standards D3666 and D3740. Use of CMRL

services is voluntary on the part of any laboratory who is willing to pay the

fees established by the oversight committees. When CCRL and AMRL were

39
established, it was specifically agreed that they would not become involved

with accreditation or certification, would not rate laboratories, or become

referees in disputes concerning qualities of materials. As discussed by Walt

Kunze this morning, actions have been taken by the CCRL Executive Group of the

Joint C1/C9 Subcommittee to possibly change this policy.

Laboratory inspections are conducted around the country in an organized

sequence. Inspection teams are continually on the road conducting

inspections. A "tour" is the length of time it takes to complete a trip

around the United States including Alaska and Hawaii, Canada and Puerto Rico.

There are almost 600 laboratories participating in the CCRL inspection program

and over 100 in the AMRL program.

Inspectors travel around the country in vehicles equipped with the necessary

verification apparatus, hand tools, and reference literature. Generally, each

team consists of three inspectors, with each inspector spending approximately

a month in the field. In this way, there is a leap-frogging effect with a

member of the team continually conducting inspections. The inspection

consists of an examination of apparatus used in testing materials for

conformance to the specifications, and in most cases, witnessing of test

procedures carried out by laboratory technicians. Great care is taken to

ensure that inspection equipment is calibrated with traceability to NBS. The

cement and concrete inspections take from one and one-half to two days each,

the combined CCRL cement and concrete inspection may take three days, and the

combined AMRL bituminous and soils inspections may take up to four days.

An important component of the inspection activity is the use of qualified

individuals as laboratory inspectors. The training program for inspectors

lasts six months including both laboratory and field work. When fully

trained, CMRL inspectors are competent to evaluate the various test methods

and to provide guidance to the laboratories being inspected. Many positive

comments are received from the laboratories inspected by CCRL and AMRL

relative to the performance of the inspectors.

The uniformity of the inspection procedure is achieved through the use of

detailed work sheets based on applicable standards. There is a constant

updating required since these standards are changing, some of them annually.

The size of the inspection packages vary from 22 sheets for cement to 151

sheets for bituminous, soils, and aggregate inspection.

While the inspection is in progress, the inspector brings each departure from

the specification or test method to the attention of the personnel in the

laboratory so that on-the-spot corrections may be made. The inspector also

occasionally finds it necessary to demonstrate the correct test procedure to

the laboratory personnel, so there is a training aspect when necessary. At

the completion of each inspection, the Inspector provides a comprehensive oral

report to the laboratory official based on his findings. Later, after the

inspector gets back to the office, a written confirmatory report is sent to

the laboratory based on the results of the inspection. These reports are

treated in a confidential manner with no distribution unless directed

otherwise by the laboratory.

Even though CMRL is not involved with accreditation or certification,

laboratory evaluation support is provided to several existing programs. The

on-site inspection and the evaluation of the quality control system of the

HO
laboratory is provided for the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation

Program (NVLAP) Concrete Laboratory Accreditation Program. Many State

Departments of Transportation laboratories are specifying AMRL and CCRL

inspection of laboratories doing testing for state projects. The

Massachusetts State Building Code Commission requires laboratories providing

services to the state to have the CCRL Inspection. Therefore, while CCRL and

AMRL do not accredit laboratories, there are organizations and governmental

agencies who use the inspection and the proficiency sample programs of CMRL

for accreditation purposes.

The number of laboratories participating in the CCRL program has grown over

the years with 577 laboratories inspected during the most recently completed

tour. There has been a decline in the number of cement producer laboratories

inspected, which is probably due to the consolidation and contraction of the

cement industry. At the same time, there has been an increase in the

participation of concrete and aggregate testing laboratories.

The AMRL inspection program, until fairly recently, has been primarily

utilized by the State Departments of Transportation. There was a significant

increase in independent laboratory participation in the tour recently

completed. The fees have been reduced to make the service more attractive and

as was indicated before, state transportation departments are specifying AMRL

inspections

The operation of proficiency sample programs is the second primary function of

CMRL which provides an additional procedure for a laboratory to evaluate the

quality of its work. A portland cement proficiency sample was first

distributed by CCRL in 1936. Participation in the CCRL program varies from 92

laboratories for masonry cement to over 250 laboratories for portland cement.

There are currently 13 foreign countries participating in the program.

Participation in AMRL proficiency sample programs varies from 130 for

bituminous concrete to more than 270 for soils. The bituminous concrete

sample was recently added by AMRL which is also evaluating the experimental

distribution of an asphalt emulsion cut back proficiency sample.

The proficiency sample programs all operate in a similar way. At intervals of

either 6 or 12 months quantities of two slightly different materials are

procurred, homogenized, and divided into two groups of individual samples.

Each laboratory receives a pair of samples and performs the specified tests

and returns the results to CMRL offices for evaluation. A final report is

distributed to participating laboratories so that they can determine how well

they have done in conducting these tests relative to the other participants in

the program. The results of these proficiency testing programs are routinely

distributed to the appropriate ASTM and AASHTO committees who find them very

useful in the development of standards. Sample reports generally contain

average values, standard deviations and other statistical information based on

procedures developed by Youden, Crandall and Blaine [5,6,7]. Scatter diagrams

are provided to the laboratories to assist them in determining how their

results compare to the others in the program. A substantial variation advises

the laboratory that there is a problem, and should encourage them to lock for

the reason such as an equipment problem, a technician problem or a materials

problem. A continuous tendency to get poor results would hopefully stimulate

the laboratory to make a detailed search for the problem. Performance charts

which graphically displayed the performance of the laboratory over time for

the last ten recent pairs of samples are a routine part of the proficiency

41
sample program.

Technical studies are a very small but significant part of CMRL activities.

This includes in-house studies such as those related to changes in programs

and the development of specific data for the work of various standards

committees; cooperative studies with other NBS units; and cooperative work

with the Center for Building Technology such as that currently taking place in

the soils and cement chemistry areas. Cooperative studies are also carried

out with organizations outside of NBS as illustrated by studies of cement cube

strength being done in conjunction with the National Ready Mixed Concrete

Association. CMRL has a very unique data base going back to 1929 which is

having a beneficial application in standards development.

It is estimated that CMRL has a significant impact on over 1000 construction

materials testing laboratories throughout the world and its programs are being

revised to be more responsive to the needs of the industry.

42
References

1. "The Cement and Concrete Reference Laboratory," NBS Letter Circular

No. 1044, National Bureau of Standards, July 1981.

2. "The Cement and Concrete Reference Laboratory — A Case History in

Collaborative Standardization," ASTM Materials Research and Standards,

Vol. 10, No. 9, 1970.

3. "AASHTO Materials Reference Laboratory," NBS Letter Circular No. 1122,

National Bureau of Standards, March 1980.

4. Steele, G. W., "Quality Assurance for Our Highways — The AASHTO Materials

Reference Laboratory (AMRL) — Fifteen Years of Service," AASHTO

Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 1, 1981, p. 35-

5. Youden, W.J., "Statistical Aspects of the Cement Testing Program, 1* Proceedings, American Society for Testing and Materials, Vol. 59, 1959,

p. 1120.

6. Crandall, J. R. and Blaine, R. L., "Statistical Evaluation of

Interlaboratory Cement Tests," Proceedings, American Society for Testing

and Materials, Vol 59, 1959, p. 1129.

7. Youden, W. J., "The Collaborative Test," Journal of the Association of

Official Agricultural Chemists, Vol. 46, 1963, pp. 55-62.

43
Laboratory Accreditation From the Perspective of a

Construction Materials Engineer

Grover C. Williams

American Council of Independent Laboratories

Introduction : My name is Grover C. Williams. I am President of Trinity

Engineering Testing Corporation, a Texas firm established in 1929. Trinity is

a medium-sized firm with approximately 260 employees. We operate laboratory

facilities to support our construction materials engineering, geotechnical

engineering and non-destructive examination services. I am the current

President-Elect of the American Council of Independent Laboratories (ACIL) and

have been requested to make this presentation on behalf of ACIL and its

Construction Materials Engineering Committee.

My personal experience includes thirty-five years as a geotechnical and

construction materials engineer. I have been actively involved throughout my

career in the development of construction materials engineering and the

defining of its area of practice. Additionally, I have been a participating

member of ASTM Committee E-36 since 1975. I am presently serving on the Board

of the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation. This background

should indicate a long-term commitment to the development and improvement of

construction materials engineering practice. I will draw on this background

to provide a brief history of construction materials engineering, examine the

relationship between the construction materials laboratory and the

construction materials engineer and offer a perspective on the value of a

credible program of accreditation for the construction materials laboratory.

Brief History of Construction Materials Engineering : The first construction

materials engineer may have been the Stone Age hunter-fisherman, who mixed red

lime with sand, gravel and water to produce concrete for the floor of his hut

on the banks of the Danube in Yugoslavia about 5,600 B.C. The modern-day

construction materials engineer may trace his heritage to 187*1 in England or

to 1881 in the United States where services offered by these 19th-century

practicioners bear a remarkable similarity to some of the present-day

practices

.

Some of us who practice construction materials engineering today are keenly

aware of the significant advances made in our specialty during the years of

World War II. The massive program of construction to support the war effort

required this country to respond with a superhuman effort. It is in this

critical period of our country's history that I believe construction materials

engineering "came of age". Subsequent events have been supportive and have

contributed to the advancement of the practice, but, in my judgment, no other

period of time has had such an impact on the emergence of construction

materials engineering as a distinct discipline of engineering practice.

Recognition of construction materials engineering as a new discipline of

engineering practice did not occur immediately. Even those firms engaged in

the practice continued to consider themselves to be civil engineers, or

mechanical engineers, or chemists or simply laboratory operators. Most of the

discussions about the practice were held informally by small groups convened

at some technical or professional engineering society meeting. No formal

44
action was taken by any group, to my knowledge, until 1961, when the

Engineering Laboratory Practices Committee of the Florida Engineering Society

formulated and published a policy statement that recognized the professional

responsibilities of firms involved in the testing of materials used in

construction. It was the position of the Florida Engineering Society that it

would be impossible merely to provide test data without being required to

interpret that data, and that the process of interpreting the data would

constitute the practice of engineering. They further observed: "Raw data

that is not evaluated is merely a collection of figures, and the orderly

marshalling of such data changes this fact not one whit. In fact, where such

a presentation creates the appearance of meaning, the potential danger

increases, because the designer may be deceived into acceptance of nonevaluated information."

The Florida Engineering Society initiative was extremely influential in

stimulating discussions in other parts of the country. It led directly to the

adoption by ASTM of the E-329 standard in 1967. The adoption of E-329, which

required professional oversight of concrete and steel testing and inspection

by a full-time registered engineer, was a monumental step. ASTM for the first

time had established a standard for personnel qualifications.

Florida took the lead again in 1970 by forming the Engineering Laboratories

Forum. The purpose of the Forum was: "To provide a continuing professional

forum to advance the position of engineering laboratories by focusing

cooperative efforts on the conditions affecting their practice." The Forum

was sponsored by the Florida Engineering Society and the Consulting Engineers

of Florida. During the same period, a Task Group of five engineering

laboratories in Texas was formed to consider the desirability of a formal

organization devoted to the practice of engineering testing. The Task Group

concluded that there was a need for such an organization and accepted the

responsibility to petition the industry for support. The Texas Council of

Engineering Laboratories (TCEL) was established in 1971 in response to the

Task Group's solicitation.

The first order of business for TCEL was the drafting of a "Manual of Practice

for Materials Engineering". This manual defined for the first time the

practice of construction materials engineering in the State of Texas. The

TCEL manual received immediate national acceptance. Permission was granted to

the American Council of Independent Laboratories in 1974 to modify the manual

for publication as a national document.

Other regional organizations were established within a relatively short period

of time. Although I do not have first-hand knowledge of these organizations,

I have heard of the good work of one of them in the Washington, D.C. area, the

Washington Area Council of Engineering Laboratories (WACEL). The objectives

of all these groups has been the same: define the practice; establish

standards of professional performance; and cooperate to advance the

professional stature of the practice. These various regional initiatives seem

to have culminated in the national effort to establish a Materials Engineering

Division in the American Society of Civil Engineers. The effort was

successful and the new Division was approved in 1984.

Relationship Between the Construction Materials La b oratory and th e Construction

Materials Engineer: Construction Materials testing has been defined as the

integral part of construction materials engineering involved with the

45
determination of the engineering properties of materials and products used in

construction. Procedures for performing construction materials tests have

generally been standardized by the American Society for Testing and Materials,

the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and various other Federal and State Agencies.

Requests for tests are accompanied by instructions that identify the

applicable test method. The laboratory is not given flexibility to deviate

from the requested procedure, although the requested test may not provide the

needed information. Frequently, complaints about unreliable test data can be

traced to the specifier's designation of an inappropriate test standard or a

non-standard sampling technique. The classic example is the specification

that requires one compressive strength test sample to be taken from each load

of concrete delivered to the project and further requires that a portion of

these single samples be tested in three days, a portion tested at seven days

and the remainder held for a decision by the architect. It would be

difficult, if not impossible, to attach any significance to the data obtained

in this fashion, regardless of the preciseness of the tests.

The proper relationship between the construction materials laboratory and the

construction materials engineer can be found in the above definition of

construction materials testing. The definition declares that construction

materials testing is an "integral" part of construction materials engineering.

The two should not exist in separate environments. They should function

harmoniously and cooperatively. A test should not be specified or evaluated

by anyone who is unaware of the significance of the data obtained in the test,

unless he or she is advised and counseled by an experienced construction

materials engineer. Equally as important, the construction materials

laboratory should not alter the specified sampling and testing plan without

the approval of the engineer who will evaluate the data.

Most of the present-day construction materials laboratories function as the

support for construction materials engineering services. The extensive use of

ASTM E-329 in specifications and building codes and the wide growing

acceptance of the benefits of construction materials engineering has nearly

eliminated the practitioner who considers himself to be only a laboratory

operator. The importance of this trend and the interdependent relationship of

the construction materials laboratory and the construction materials engineer

should not be ignored in the structuring of an accreditation system that will

adequately respond to the needs of both parties.

Accreditation of Construction Materials Laboratories ; Having been involved

for so many years with the issue of laboratory accreditation, I am acutely

aware of most of the fears, frustrations and skepticisms articulated by a

variety of groups in the United States. The only other issue to my knowledge,

that has occasioned a comparable level of emotional reaction has been the

environment. Ironically, there is fairly good agreement on the general

principles. The issue is rapidly polarized, however, when it comes to

specifics. Unless a group is unalterably opposed to the basic concept of

accreditation, most will agree that accreditation should be meaningful; it

should be fair; it should be administered by knowledgeable people; it should

be cost efficient; and it should receive the broadest possible acceptance and

respect. This is the point, in all the discussions to which I have been

party, where the wheels fall off. Group one argues vehemently that an

accreditation will be meaningless unless every test method utilized in the

46
laboratory schedule of tests Is completely monitored. Group two proclaims the

discipline approach to be superior, infinitely more valuable and less

expensive. Those in group three sit on the sidelines smirking. They would

like to see the whole issue go away.

Accreditation of laboratories has been heavily discussed and debated for well

over fifteen years, to my personal knowledge. It would appear reasonable to

assume that something of value had been learned in that length of time. The

National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) has been in

existence since 1976. The American Association for Laboratory Accreditation

(AALA) was established in 1978. ASTM Committee E-36 has all but exhausted the

subject of generic criteria. I have the feeling that the fires of passion

have begun to subside and perhaps, maybe just perhaps, some folks are

beginning to hear what the other side is trying to say. I am beginning to

hear the proponents of the "product-by-standard n approach talk in terms of

increasing the number of tests in a "field of testing" to make possible a

broader accreditation. I am also beginning to hear the "discipline group" say

that by adding to a "field of testing" accreditation you can get as detailed

an assessment as you want or need. The marketplace has also spoken on the

issue and that resounding voice should be heeded.

As a construction materials engineer, I am interested in obtaining reliable

test data. I am especially interested in assuring that the test data from my

own laboratory are reliable. I have stressed repeatedly in this paper that it

is absolutely necessary to have the test data evaluated by a knowledgeable

construction materials engineer. The Florida Engineering Society made this

very important point in their policy statement in 1961. A significant part of

the evaluation is an assessment of test data reliability. An experienced

engineer can generally identify inconsistencies in the tests even though he

did not witness the tests being performed. Laboratory accreditation would be

an excellent additional safeguard for the engineer to utilize in assessing the

reliability of the data.

An outside source of verification can provide a discipline that is beneficial

to most laboratories. The willingness to be scrutinized and the desire to

improve are the characteristics of professionals with long-term commitments to

their business enterprise and to their field of practice. Laboratory

accreditation represents one more forward step in the long history of

professional development. I think the step is worth taking.

Closure ; Events of the past several months have been encouraging. It appears

now that the agreement on form and content of laboratory accreditation is much

closer to being an accomplished fact. Some of the other diversions have also

been resolved. The road ahead looks much smoother and calmer. Lest we all

slip and fall into our old ways, let me remind us all to begin at the point of

general agreement. Accreditation should really mean something; it should be

fair to the party being accredited; it should be administered by knowledgeable

people of integrity, it should consider the economic impact on the accreditee

and his clients; and it should be marketed to receive the broadest possible

acceptance. Having accomplished those objectives, it will receive the respect

it deserves.

47
Laboratory Accreditation From the Perspective of a Model Building Code

Thomas Frost

BOCA, International

I certainly appreciate the opportunity to speak to this group. I am afraid

that you'll probably conclude that I've learned more from listening to you

than you will from listening to me. It's a very ambitious undertaking to try

to give you a perspective regarding the role of laboratory accreditation in

the building code regulatory process.

In a most fundamental sense, laboratory accreditation is a key element of the

code process. It is absolutely critical that the regulatory official, whose

burden it is to ensure safe occupancy of structures, has a reasonable basis to

prequalify the test data from which the anticipated building performance is

determined

.

With that, let me start with a tailored definition of a building code. A

building code is a document intended for law enforcement. A code official is

not there to be a friend or a consultant, but a law enforcement officer in the

true sense. He is there to make people do things, that in many cases, they

don't want to do, hence the term enforcement.

Let's look briefly at the type of codes. It's been my experience as a

practicing architect that the prevailing view of a building code is of a body

of ill conceived, obstructionary text, frequently dominated by labor unions,

placed there to make the practice of architecture more difficult that it

normally would be. Perhaps in some locales that is the case. The modern,

performance-oriented model code document is a rational, consensus-based

document that does a pretty good job considering the complexity and scope of

modern construction. There are two types of codes that still exist today in

this country. I would guess that about 20% of the codes used as regulatory

documents in this country are home-grown codes, local codes. The code of the

city of Chicago is one example. These codes are by-and-large undesireable,

since they are inconsistent, may not be current and are prescriptive in

format. In many cases the standards referenced in these codes are out of date.

Most of the local code organizations provide no technical support. If you

have a question regarding the application, interpretation, or meaning of a

section of a code, you are going to find very little assistance at the local

level. The formulation of such codes unfortunately tends to be dominated by

special interests in the political process.

Model building codes are promulgated at this time by three organizations;

BOCA, ICBO, and SBCC. A model code organization, such as BOCA, is a private,

not for profit membership organization consisting principally of enforcement

officials. I estimate that the model codes represent about 80$ of the text

used to regulate building construction in this country. These codes are life

safety oriented and performance based, requiring engineering analysis and

technical judgment. Therefore, they are heavily dependent on reliable,

reproducible test data. At the risk of oversimplification, all three model

codes take the perspective that we do not care if the building burns down as

long as everyone gets out safely.

U8
The BOCA code is subject to an annual code change cycle where anyone who takes

exception to a code section, a code philosophy, or a standard which is

referenced is free and is indeed encouraged to submit a code change. These

changes must meet the annual code change deadline which is August 1 of each

year. These changes are then debated in an open forum where Robert's Rules of

Order apply. There are various committees, such as the Building Code Change

Committee, which hear proposed changes and make recommendations considered at

the January code change meeting. The membership present at the annual

convention in June will vote on actions taken in January and will either

uphold or go in opposition to the committee's recommendations. There are open

hearings where everyone including special interest groups is free to advance

their case. This results in a very current state-of-the-art code. The most

recent BOCA building code was promulgated in 1984. There is a 1986 supplement

and we are in the process of printing the 1987 edition. We have many

representatives from the construction community and we certainly look forward

to increased participation in the code change process from the testing and

inspection community.

I would again like to emphasize that BOCA provides technical support to the

users of its documents. This technical support includes product evaluation

under the auspices of the National Evaluation Service for both the users of

the BOCA code and the two other model codes. The principal mission of the

Service is to provide an alternative to current acceptance procedures for

innovative materials. Historically under the old procedures of building

codes, someone with a better mousetrap, a new structural product, or the like,

found it very difficult to gain code acceptance. Because of the procedures of

the National Evaluation Service we are able to facilitate the acceptance of

materials which have been demonstrated to work and where good documentation is

available. The use of test data is very intensive when evaluating new and

innovative materials. I am talking about materials for which there may be no

referenced standards in the codes. Engineering analysis may be used to

determine if the new product performs in a manner as intended by the code

which is a rigorous and data intensive procedure. The National Evaluation

Service has taken off exponentially since the beginning of BOCA's stewardship

in July 1984, which will run until July 1987. The greater participation of

such a national program provides economy of scale. There is a higher level of

scrutiny since not only does the BOCA staff review these evaluation reports

but also the staffs of the two other model codes. These reports may be for a

product, a design method, quality assurance agency, or in a few cases testing

laboratories. This procedure affords a much broader range of scrutiny than is

possible to achieve on the local level since the building official will

probably not have the time and may not have the expertise to conduct such

reviews

I should point out that there are three model codes and we are competitors

since we compete for territory and use of the codes. BOCA is used principally

in the Midwest, the East Coast, New England area, Maryland and Virginia. All,

or in part, some 27 states use the BOCA building, mechanical, fire, existing

structures codes. We are not governmental, but we serve government. We do

agree to function together in certain cooperative activities under the

umbrella organization of CABO, Council of American Building Officials. The

National Evaluation Service is one such cooperative activity.

I would like to take some time to discuss how the BOCA code regulates building

performance. At the risk of oversimplification, let's look at two principal

49
methods; configuration and materials performance. Configuration can be

dispensed with quickly since that is not what we are discussing today. Height

and area constraints are examples. Would the code permit construction of a

highrise building of woodframe construction? Certainly not, since it is

potentially much more vulnerable to fire than a building constructed of

reinforced concrete or steel having a high degree of fire resistance. Other

configuration regulations include means of egress, locations of exits, travel

distance, spacing of buildings from each other and conflagration or large

building fire hazard. These appear more in a schematic design phase than in a subsequent engineering analysis of a new, innovative material.

The performance of material in a fire can be evidenced by fire resistance

ratings; ASTM E119 considers flame resistance, and ASTM E84 considers flame

spread ratings and thermal transmission. We are seeing more and more

innovative uses of wood materials including particle board composites,

laminated veneer lumber, and combinations of these materials. This is getting

very interesting since we are dealing with test data that we have not had an

occasion to look at before. The performance of a material may be measured in

several ways. There is usually a referenced standard if we are dealing with a

material which is not all that new or innovative. Model codes documents

reference approximately three to four hundred standards. These standards are

not in themselves reproduced in the BOCA code, but are listed in the

appendices. It's comparably straightforward given a viable system of

laboratory accreditation to correlate the test data with the product. In some

cases for specific types of products where the performance is deemed critical

- let's take closed prefabricated structural assemblies as an example - it is

essential to have third party in plant verification developing a reasonable

sampling protocol. But in any case, the reliance is on test data and we as

technical support staff for BOCA must aid the building official to prequalify

data upon which acceptance is based. How do we provide a common, reliable,

objective forum to evaluate such materials? I think the best way to answer

this question as well as to illustrate what is meant by performance based

code, is to read Section 107. 4 out of the BOCA Code entitled Alternative

Materials and Equipment.

The provisions of this code are not intended to prevent the use of

any material or method of construction not specifically prescribed by

this code provided any such alternative has been approved. The

building official may approve such alternative provided the building

official finds that the proposed design is satisfactory and complies

with the intent of the provisions of this code and that the material,

method or work offered is for the purpose intended at least the

equivalent of that prescribed in this code in quality, strength,

effectiveness, fire resistance, durability and safety.

Supporting evidence for material performance may be derived by testing or in

some cases rational analysis. Testing is frequently not in accordance with

standard procedures and may even indeed require the modification of existing

standards. One example would be ASTM E108, Measures of Flammability of Roof

Coverings, where a modified version has been commonly used to measure the fire

hazard characteristics of an exterior insulation system.

I used the word approved, but who approves materials? "Approved" is simply

defined as approval by the building official or other authority having

50
jurisdiction for use within the jurisdiction. It is simply the exercise of

police power by the building official. I have dealt with some laboratories

that may or may not have been reputable, who wanted to conclude that if BOCA

evaluated their ability to perform certain tests, than it was axiomatic that

all such subsequent products that they evaluated were "approved" under this

code. This is not true. When we issue an evaluation report on an innovative

product, material, or system or a testing laboratory or an inspection agency,

we are reporting findings to our association members. We are telling them;

"here's the scope of the use of this product or the scope of the operation of

the agency in question." Under certain constraints or limitations of use, we

feel that these products can be used in a manner that complies with the code.

We are not hedging when we say we do not approve anything. We are making it

clear rather that an evaluation report is intended to be the basis upon which

approval by the code official can be based.

Given the above, what is the role of accreditation? Quite simply, it is to

provide a basis for the use of the data by the code official. As you can see,

the programs that I manage which deal principally with new and innovative

materials, are closely tied to reliable, reproducible data.

BOCA's role is both direct and indirect. We evaluate a laboratory based on

data or information they submit when seeking evaluation in accordance with

ASTM E548. We issue a report which describes the laboratory and the tests we

feel they have demonstrated their ability to conduct. This report is an aid

to the building official in the decision making process. Indirectly, we have

to prequality data for our own use. If we are doing an evaluation of a new

and innovative product, we need to verify through reasonable means that the

test data being supplied to us is accurate and reproducible. Our methodology

is based on ASTM E548, with the requested information broken into categories.

The nature of the organization, is it independent; human resources, does the

laboratory have qualified personnel, professional credentials; materials

resources, do they have the proper equipment to run the tests in question and

is it calibrated? Additionally, quality systems, sample selection procedures,

interpretation of results are evaluated.

My final point is that while, in fact, we visit very few laboratories, we have

very effective methods of feedback. We have a cadre of 3»000 building

officials in building departments in the BOCA area, and I am constantly on the

phone with various problems associated with products that we may or may not

have evaluated or test laboratories which we may or may not have evaluated.

It is not a requirement under the code that anyone seek an evaluation or

report. It is a voluntary process whereby we provide assistance to the code

official.

51
Laboratory Accreditation from the Perspective of State

Building Code Officials

William Connolly

State of New Jersey

About a year ago I was reading my favorite newspaper, The New York Times, and

I stumbled on a column by George Will. That day he was doing something he

doesn't very often do, reflecting on the legitimate role of government. If

you know George Will he is one of those columnists who is not very fond of

government, but he had just had an experience in which he was a little more

observant than usual. Getting on the elevator he had noticed the elevator

inspection certificate on the wall, and for whatever reason he began to think

to himself what chance would he have, a newspaper columnist, of determining

with the information that was available to him whether or not he would get to

the twelfth floor safely. Obviously he could not. That caused him to realize

there were certain things that government really did need to do. He talked

about things such as the certification of an elevator as sort of the bread and

butter of government. Government has a role in removing uncertainties and

eliminating the necessity for ordinary citizens to make judgments regarding

their health and safety in areas where they do not have the necessary

expertise or information. From my perspective as a building code official

this is what material certification is all about.

I know from some of the earlier presentations today that not everyone shares

that perspective completely, but believe there are other purposes to which

materials testing and materials certification can be put. We in the National

Conference of the States on Building Codes and Standards (NCSBCS) do not

disagree with much that has been said today, but we do bring a slightly

different perspective.

I want to start with two points which I hope will demonstrate my perspective

as a building regulator. I speak based on experience with a rather large and

sophisticated building code enforcement system in New Jersey. We have a state-wide building code system with roughly 3,000 inspectors who are trained

and pre-qualified by my agency. Any of them can be removed from office by my

agency. We interpret the code and review plans for the most sophisticated

structures that are going to be built in the state. We have a close working

relation with local governments.

Because the state building code agency is large, we have an opportunity that

many building departments do not have and that is to reflect on what we are

doing, why we are doing it, and whether it makes any sense. What I am going

to tell you is something that any building official would say if he had the

time to reflect.

Laboratory accreditation is not an independent subject as it relates to

construction materials. The laboratory is but a part, a key part to be sure,

but nonetheless just a part of the entire product certification system. It

provides probably the most substantial technical input into that system but it

is only a part of the system. In the NCSBCS we have a greater concern with

the entire product certification system than with the laboratory accreditation

component

.

52
Laboratory accreditation and product certification insofar as they involve

health and safety issues are ultimately and essentially governmental in

nature, because they are an integral part of the law enforcement system. As

Tom Frost mentioned earlier, building codes are instruments of law

enforcement. I am probably one of the few people in this room with a badge,

because ultimately when you strip it all away I am a cop. This is not to say

that every material or product certification is ultimately subject to

governmental interest or control since many do not concern health and safety.

Those that are health and safety in nature are subject to control.

Let me talk now about the present system as we see it. Some might suggest

that I have just overstated the governmental role in this system, but in fact

the entire material testing and product certification system is presently

subject legally at least to strict and complete governmental oversight. It is

also presently subject from a practical standpoint to virtually no

governmental oversight. This marvelous paradox is due to a couple of things;

our federal system of government with police power resting with the states,

and proclivity of states to sub-delegate this responsibility to their units of

local government. The degree to which our remarkably decentralized and

overlapping structure manages to conceal major inconsistencies in utterly

opaque administrative arrangements is, I am sure, a source of considerable

amazement to people from other nations. I think this is a fair description of

material product certification in the United States in 1986. The existence of

a system in America which standardizes the characteristics of construction

materials with real assurance is fundamentally important to building safety.

The system for construction materials is administered and managed by some

28,000 essentially sovereign regulatory jurisdictions by law if not by

practice.

Lets look at how a building code law regulates materials, tests, and

laboratories. Buildings are designed essentially in accordance with accepted

engineering practice or design standards. Those practices and standards rely

extensively on knowing the characteristics of the materials. These reference

standards and their associated test requirements are adopted in building

codes. The 1984 Edition of the Basic Building Code prepared by BOCA (Building

Officials and Code Administrators) from which Tom Frost was reading a few

moments ago is the law in New Jersey since it is adopted without amendment.

It is the same as a piece of statutory law passed in the legislature. Section

1104 of the 1984 edition of the code titled Approval states that an "approved

agency" shall test a "representative sample." It goes on to say that an

approved agency should be independent, should have adequate equipment and

qualified personnel. Approved by who? Approved by the building official? A

regulatory world is buried in that one word. Section 201 of the BOCA Code

defines an approved agency as an established and recognized agency. The

question is recognized by who? Another world buried in a single word.

Needless to say, those regulatory worlds are frequently superficial, slap-dash

or non existent in fact. Many local and state officials are not fully

cognizant of the obligations those two words place on them or are they fully

able to carry out the role that those two words establish for them.

Responding to that in this country we have an often workable, informal and

largely private system which is widely recognized and has grown up to respond

to real needs. The bottom line, however, is that our systems are at variance

with our laws. So what, it's working isn't it?

53
That our current system frequently works and sometimes works reasonably well

can not be allowed to obscure some fundamental problems. First, we have to

assume that health and safety is somewhat in jeopardy when we do not have a coherent, organized way to assure that the tests needed to verify that the

laws being complied with are in fact being properly performed by qualified

persons. Second, we have to be concerned about restraint of trade and denial

of due process when we lack procedures to fairly and adequately assess the

competence of all who seek to perform the tests that the government requires.

This is especially true as organizations that perform the tests, and

organizations that accredit the organizations that perform the tests

proliferate. I certainly think I see them proliferating and have not heard

anything here today that suggests that proliferation is a thing of the past.

I think that we are going to see more types of certification programs.

Let me share with you just one little experience that we had in New Jersey

that indicates to me at least that this is a real issue. One of the things

that the State of New Jersey does is to approve plans when a municipal

official in the town where the building will be built is not qualified to do

so. We know whether the official is qualified by our licensing system. When

the state approves a plan the local official is required to immediately grant

a permit without further approval. This system eliminates duplication and

assures that plans are approved in reasonably good order. A private profit

making company about eight years ago decided that it would go into the

business of approving plans by boldly asserting the right to approve plans. It

sounds a little strange, but it took us six years in the federal courts to put

a stop to it and we had to go to the circuit court of appeals since we lost at

the district court level. The reason we won was because it was decided that

we surely have a right to not use private agencies. But imagine for a moment

that we have a regulation or a code that says that laboratories will be

accredited, just to use an example, by NVLAP. Easy Approved Laboratory

Accreditation then comes to us and says "we want equal standing." If we don't

have a real basis for evaluating an accreditation program that affords

adequate due process to Easy Approved Laboratory Accreditations then we have

no choice but to accept them. There could be a problem on the horizon with

the proliferation of essentially private laboratory accreditation programs.

It is not possible for government to simply recognize one private entity

without recognizing others unless it has substantial and carefully put

together procedures, standards, and critieria. This system that we have often

works, but we need to be concerned about the proliferation of accreditation

systems and the multiple recognitions that are needed. Not only have private

organizations moved into this area, but many state governments have as well.

We need to think about the degree to which this non-system is beginning to

impose unnecessary expense on producers and inhibiting the flow of new

materials and technology to the marketplace. Unnecessary expenses result when

a single test laboratory has to seek multiple private and governmental

approvals in order to do a job.

Well, what is the solution to this problem? This is a subject that has been

much discussed over the last two years amongst the states through NCSBCS. In

addition to being a member of the Board of Directors of that organization I

also chair a special committee on the recognition of certification programs.

Its goal is to plan what the state governments can do, working together, to

actually discharge the responsibility that the words "approved" and

"recognized" give to them under the codes in a way that is efficient,

effective, and does not duplicate what is already being done. We need to meet

54
our obligation to afford adequate due process without being arbitrary or

capricious to people that come before us either with certification programs or

accreditation programs that they want accepted. In the course of that work I

think we have been able to identify what we consider to be the essential

elements of reform and improvement in the system which I would like to share

with you before I close. First, we do in fact need certification programs for

testing laboratories and all testing laboratories whose data are used in a

regulatory sense ought to be certified. There is room for a variety of such

programs, especially if they are private. The law in fact requires that

variety. We are not in the position to say that this program is the one that

is going to be accepted to the exclusion of comparable systems. There is

plenty of room for a variety of programs and approaches which appears to be

consistent with the general trend of events.

Next, there is a need for an authoritative, and when I say authoritative you

can read governmental organization, which will set, monitor, and enforce

minimum criteria for laboratory accreditation programs. It does not mean that

government needs to take over laboratory accreditation, but government

agencies that are going to recognize laboratory accreditation programs need to

have the ability to monitor and enforce minimum criteria. Hopefully, this can

be done jointly rather than separately. If done jointly an authoritative

mechanism will be needed in which a government agency can place full reliance.

Such an authoritative organization should be self-supporting, should be as

independent as possible of the vagaries of political and funding problems,

should draw upon the authority of the states and the Federal Government, and

be recognized by both. Such a system also needs to be based on the premise

that decertification is one of the most important parts of the certification

program. It is not something you get once and you keep forever. It does

require a serious effort not only at monitoring, but on taking action when

monitoring results show Unsatisfactory performance.

The development of a coherent system for recognition of product certifiers is

probably even more desirable. The reason I say more desirable, is that in

product certification the proliferation is far greater than in laboratory

accreditation. Also, there is a good deal more involvement by profit making

and non-membership organizations in product certification which almost by

definition are somewhat less responsible, than non-profit membership

organizations

We need to start moving more quickly. We have seen any number of efforts

described here today that intellectually make all the sense in the world but

are growing far too slowly. We need something that is going to drive this

system and we think that an authoritative process that rests on the authority

of the states and the Federal government will in fact derive acceptance. I

find it a little bit odd talking about, as a number of our speakers talked

about earlier today, the concept of marketing accreditation, when this

accreditation is required by law.

All of this we think is necessary, not just because it is rational or because

it is intellectually tidy, but because it protects health and safety, it would

not restrain trade, and it would allow and encourage Innovation. These things

are not adequately promoted by the present situation to the degree that it

should. Thank you very much.

55
Legal and Liability Concerns Associated with

Certification and Accreditation Programs

James Anderson

Loomis, Owen, Fellman and Howe

It is a pleasure to be here. The law school I attended was located next to

the engineering school and the medical school. An entrepreneurial type person

set up a bar nearby and said that in order to be a patron you had to be either

an engineer, a doctor or a lawyer. So I got to know a lot of your brethren.

That particular comradery generated a lot of competition between us,

intramural football, etc. and there was the continuing controversy whether St.

Patrick was an engineer or a lawyer. The lawyers claimed he was a lawyer and

the engineers claimed he was an engineer. I've always heard that was an age

old controversy and never figured out where it came from.

As indicated by the conference program the purpose of my discussion is to

highlight some of the potential legal problems that an accreditation program

might have. There are essentially two areas where a liability can occur. The

first is the situation where injury to a third party occurs as a result of an

alleged mistake made on the part of an accredited laboratory and creates

potential liability for the accrediting agency. The second area is a

violation of the antitrust laws which concerns liability on the part of an

accrediting agency when the part of an injured party, specifically a

laboratory, has been either denied accreditation for some reason, or whose

accreditation was withdrawn.

My experience has shown that if you look statistically at the number of cases

in recent years, there have been more antitrust than tort cases. But the

question of the liability of an accrediting agency when a laboratory does not

do a proper job is one which I think will come up soon, because the general

rule as far as lawsuits are concerned is to sue everybody in sight. This is

done to ensure that the party with the deepest pockets becomes involved.

Recently I was talking with a reporter in another industry who was trying to

attach some significance to a case where a particular defendent had to pay

$1.5 million. The conclusion that I came to was that it shows that a

plaintiff can successfully sue anyone in the business. It doesn't mean that

everybody is going to be liable, but what happened in this case, is that the

plaintiff had an injury and looked around and found someone able to pay. So,

if I were a plaintiff's lawyer, and I found out that an accident occurred as a

result of the failing of some type of material that had been certified by a

laboratory, I think I would consider whether or not the laboratory who made

the certification had done its job properly. If in fact that laboratory had

been accredited, I would then determine whether or not the accreditation

procedures were such to ensure that the laboratory could do its job. This

raises all kinds of issues as to how one would protect himself from liability

if he were to establish an accreditation procedure.

In thinking about this issue, it seems to me that the question of the degree

of certification, issues raised in earlier talks, is very important. One

level of accreditation would be to ensure that the laboratory has the proper

equipment. A second level might be to certify that the laboratory has the

proper equipment and follows the proper procedures. A third level of

56
accreditation would be to accredit and/or certify, (I use the term

synonomously here), that the laboratory has the proper equipment, that it uses

the proper procedures and that it has proper personnel. The next level of

accreditation would be to say that the laboratory, in addition to all of the

above based upon the accreditation procedures, is at present following all of

the proper procedures, is equipped with the proper equipment, and has

competent personnel. Obviously, each level exposes you to more liability.

The best procedure would be to certify that the laboratory has all of the

proper equipment. If you do this you're not saying that the laboratory is

properly using the equipment, or that they are following the proper

procedures. Now, in the course of establishing an accreditation program,

minimum criteria would have to be developed. If they did the tests correctly

90% of the time, would that be the requirement; or would 50$, 40$, etc. be

appropriate?

The issue of whether or not an accrediting agency and/or an accredited

laboratory is going to find itself in court, in my view, will probably relate

to the degree of publication of the fact that a laboratory is accredited. The

commercialization of the fact of accreditation, if you will. Based on what I

have heard here today, and my experience in the construction industry, it is

obvious that by obtaining accreditation a laboratory would be able to compete

better and anticipate higher profits. Higher fees can be charged, and the

laboratory can bid for jobs where the specifying organization requires an

accredited laboratory. The more that accreditation becomes publicized, the

more likely it is that the accredited laboratory, and perhaps the accrediting

agency, could find itself as a party to a law suit.

Statistically, I have not seen an awful lot of cases where an accrediting

agency has found itself in court. Most of the cases that have been recently

recorded were related to consumer Injuries where a certifying agency has said

that the product meets certain standards. There is a case involving fire

extinguishers where one exploded causing a person to be injured, and not only

was the manufacturer sued, but also the certifying agency. I have seen a case

involving a trade association where the plaintiff said that the trade

association failed to establish proper criteria, and that they did this

purposely in order to not tell the public that a particular type hazard

existed in a product. The plaintiff believed that exposure to this particular

product caused his cancer. The case was subsequently dismissed on other

grounds and the issue was never decided.

The area that I have seen litigation, however, is in cases involving antitrust

and trade regulation matters, where someone has either been denied

certification, or denied accreditation, or where the accreditation or

certification has been removed. In this case, the person comes in under the

theory that his ability to compete in a specific industry has been

substantially reduced, alleging that, the party removing his certification has

violated the antitrust laws.

I think that the New Jersey examples discussed earlier are similar to some of

the situations that I have seen, and in the short run those are the kinds of

problems that you are going to experience in accreditation of laboratories in

the construction industry. It appears that steps have been taken to establish

procedures to insure that laboratories being accredited are carrying out the

procedures properly. By virtue of the discussion we have heard today, I think

there has been a tremendous amount of effort to establish procedures for

57
reviewing the work of the laboratories, to ensure that they have the proper

equipment and that their personnel are properly trained.

I do think that work must be done to establish procedures for reviewing

applications that are consistent with the antitrust laws. In that regard,

some of you may be aware of the Hydrolevel case, which has had a significant

impact on standards making activities and other trade association activity. I

think that it might be helpful to review the facts of that case briefly.

Hydrolevel Corporation manufactured a device that shut off water that flowed

into tanks which was somewhat revolutionary to the extent that it was

something that none of the competitors had at their disposal. The Hydrolevel

device used a computer while its competitors had sort of a float type device

that shut off the water. At a very low level committee meeting of the

American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), committee members in a

backroom session drafted a new standard which eliminated Hydrolevel's device

thus effectively preventing them from competing in the industry. While this

was a voluntary standard, the committee members knew that it would be adopted

by most specifying agencies. The standard subsequently went through the

various levels of the ASME and was ultimately approved by the Board of

Director who did not know about the intent of the backroom committee to

eliminate Hydrolevel. They sort of rubberstamped the standard as it went all

the way through the system.

As a result, Hydrolevel went out of business. Hydrolevel then filed an

antitrust case against the participants in the backroom session, as well as

the ASME. Everyone settled out of court except ASME which took the position

that because the Society was not aware of and was not a party to the illegal

activities, specifically the discussions in the backroom, that they were not

liable. Well, the case ultimately went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme

Court said sorry ASME, our view is that all trade association activity must be

conducted in accordance with the antitrust laws, and the parent organization

is responsible for the actions of all members acting in behalf of the

association

.

The importance of Hydrolevel is that it requires that all certifying and

standards making agencies follow due process requirements, and insure that

standards are not promulgated in such a way as to eliminate certain segments

from competition. Now, what impact does this have on accrediting agencies?

When you establish your procedures or your policies regarding accreditation,

you must insure that these policies, criteria, and procedures are set up in a

fair and proper way. Procedures must be established whereby persons or

organizations that are denied accredit ion are aware of the reasons, and that

there are procedures within the accreditation process to insure that they can

appeal the decision. Problems have occurred, for example, in situations where

persons have been denied accreditation based upon hearsay evidence. There was

a case involving a company that manufactured a certain type of a signal for

boat trailers whose product certification was removed by a trailer

manufacturer association. At a hearing of the certifiers a competitor got up

and said, "You know Smith's Company doesn't follow our standards." And

someone from the association got up and said, "You're right. Smith doesn't do

it and unless Smith makes the changes we're going to decertify him." Smith

never got an opportunity to come forward and say what he did, and subsequently

the fact that he was decertified resulted in an antitrust litigation with the

plaintiff in the case recovering against the association.

58
So the bottom line as far as limiting your liability for an accrediting agency

is to establish reasonable accreditation criteria consistent with the job that

the laboratory is going to have to perform. The criteria has to be reasonable

so that it can be met by all qualified parties and they will be able to

compete. Secondly, you have to establish fair and complete accreditation

procedures so that the persons who are denied accreditation will know where

they are and in effect what they have to do to establish accreditation. So

when someone applies for accreditation they have to know what the standards

are that they have to meet, if they fail to meet the standard they have to be

told why and what they have to do in order to meet the standards. If they

are being decertified or disaccredited , they have to be told why and they have

to be given an opportunity to come forward and appeal the decision of the body

that decertified or disaccredited. In that regard, if complaints are made

against them, it is very important that when complaints are investigated that

efforts be taken to insure that the complaints are valid and that the party

against whom the complaints have been made has a reasonable opportunity to

respond. It is also important that accreditation procedures be properly

represented to third parties. In that regard, I think that the problem will

occur more when private sector laboratories get involved in representing

themselves or holding themselves out to be accredited. It is important that

if you are the accrediting agency you make sure that the laboratories that you

accredit set forth properly what they are accredited to do to the third party.

If they hold themselves out to be something that they are not, it could result

in liability.

So in conclusion, I believe that this is not an area fraught with so much

litigation that it should be avoided. It is an area where the exercise of

care and caution can limit your liability, and as I said in the beginning, I

think your problems will result not so much from injuries that occur as a result of negligence, but more as a result from injuries that occur to people

who have been refused accreditation or have had their accreditation withdrawn.

59
Certification Program Experiences Relative to Liability Issues

Richard Gaynor

NSGA - NRMCA

I will be discussing the certification programs of The National Ready-Mixed

Concrete Association (NRMCA). These have been in operation since 1965 and

include a certification program for ready-mixed concrete production facilities

including the plant, the aggregate handling equipment, and the transport

vehicles, and a program for certification of personnel.

We have been conscious of potential liability problems with such programs and

have taken steps which we hope will prevent such problems. This includes the

development of requirements by a broad based group including those who will be

affected. The plant certification program is under the jurisdiction of the

NRMCA Standards Committee which primarily includes those to be certified. A

program should not promise more than it can deliver and should be available at

a realistic cost to anybody who wants to use it. Record keeping is important

including the original development of records, minutes of meetings, and letter

ballots on revisions.

I have handed out a sheet which on one side shows a certificate that we issue

for plant certification, and on the other side a certificate for personnel. I

would like to present a brief outline of how our system works for the readymix concrete production facilities. The company hires a registered

professional engineer (P.E.) who is required to have certain experience in the

technical area of certification. An area where we have been on the edge of

getting in trouble is that case where the obviously qualified person is not a

P.E. and we have taken the position that we will not accept the check list for

a facility that he has prepared. In spite of this problem, we still require a

P.E. The P.E. takes the check list and inspects the plant, the trucks and

related facility components and returns it to us. We do an audit procedure to

see if it is filled out correctly and if the Inspector has done an acceptable

job. We write letters and question information on 10 to 20 percent of the

check lists that are submitted to make sure that they have been done properly.

If we are satisfied, we issue a certificate which the P.E. and the company

official sign. At the bottom of the certificate there is a place for the

signature of the company official stating that he will maintain the facilities

in accordance with the check list requirements for the remainder of the twoyear certification period. The personnel certificate states that the person

has passed the examination and has demonstrated his ability to perform the

tests.

An important issue related to certification is the referencing of the system

by a specifying body. In our case, we want to make sure that the specifying

agency does not specify that the applicant be certified by the National ReadyMixed Concrete Association, but rather that the facilities meet the

requirements of the check list or that the person has the knowledge and

ability to perform the tests. It should not be specified that the individual

should have a certificate from NRMCA. Our documents are available for use and

if someone shows that he can comply with the requirements as they appear in

those documents then he should be accepted. I understand that that creates

some problems for the specifying agency. It may be much easier for the
specifier to accept one of our certificates and say he complies, but in the

absence of that certificate, we would like for him to have the option of

coming to us or to somebody else to make the judgment about whether or not he

meets the requirements. We believe this helps us a great deal in shielding

NRMCA from liability as it relates to the antitrust issues discussed by Jim

Anderson

What about liability and liability coverage? Well, in the 20 years we have

had coverage, we have had no court cases, or even near court cases. The NRMCA

system is probably a great deal simpler than the accreditation system being

discussed at this Conference. Our system has been incorporated in a number of

specifications and is widely used across the country. It has been used in

Illinois, Florida and Arizona as a requirement for furnishing concrete to

State construction projects at various times. Other than that, it hasn't been

a hard requirement anywhere which has probably helped us some. I think our

procedures for access by those who have an Interest has headed off things that

might have been potential problems. We do have liability insurance coverage

and it's getting more expensive. We probably benefit from the fact that we've

carried the coverage with the same carrier for almost 20 years and he may not

have looked at us closely in the last couple of years. This may change on

October 1 when the policy comes up for renewal, but I hope not.

As discussed by Jim Anderson a short time ago, one area of concern is when a

company or person is denied certification. It is obvious that openness in

record keeping and reasonableness of the requirements themselves all help in

both avoiding and ultimately in defending law suits. This is one thing we

have been sensitive to from the beginning and we sometimes have been

criticized for not making the requirements more strict. However, development

of a system that does not discriminate against companies or personnel who can

perform is a sensitive issue from the point of view of restraint of trade. We

do not think that we have exposure in this area. The note at the bottom of

our plant certification certificate states that the plant will operate

properly, but there's more to it than that. Our check list has a paragraph

that talks about limitations of facility certification.

I was interested in listening to the discussions of NVLAP and ILAC that a real

attempt is being made in the International area to assure the quality of

testing. I have a fundamental belief that there isn't a police force in the

world that is going to succeed without the support of those that are being

protected and I believe this applies to the area being considered at this

Conference. I do not believe that we will be successful in guaranteeing that

labs will do things correctly or that any agency can be an effective police

force to ensure that testing is done in accordance with standards. Certainly,

efforts can be improved, but if we attempt to certify performance we will

incur much more serious liability exposure.

61
Plant Certification Program of the Prestressed Concrete Institute

George H. Krepel, Jr.

Prestressed Concrete Institute

The Prestressed Concrete Institute, as a group 20 years ago, decided that if

the industry was to survive it would have to provide quality products. The

members of the Institute decided that what they needed to do was to develop

standards for their products and a standard form of inspection which the

industry could live with. It is very possible to say that PCI's program is

close to self regulation. This program is available to over 400 manufacturers

of precast and prestressed concrete. It does not apply to concrete block or

concrete pipe manufacturers.

PCI's program is voluntary, but the institute has been very successful over

the years in getting specifiers to recommend PCI plant certification. The

Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Navy utilize the program in many

parts of the country, and the overall acceptance of the program is increasing.

Agencies are actively looking for companies or organizations such as ours that

will help ensure that they are getting the product they are specifying. One

of the things that always bothers me is that many specifiers will require PCI

certified plants until the final bid, at which time that requirement goes out

the window and the only thing that matters is the price tag. This bothers me

because it indicates that specifiers don't understand the purpose of a

certification program.

I am amazed at the discussion we have heard today about two, three and four

year inspection periods. We fought very diligently with BOCA to allow us to

visit a plant only three times a year for four days worth of inspection. This

adds a lot of credibility to PCI's plant certification program, which is

necessary if a program is to be viable. An inspection every four years

doesn't sound very credible and I agree with Mr. Anderson that you may be

increasing your liability by saying that four years is enough. I am not so

sure that liability stops after every four months. PCI has never been sued or

been party to a suit. We have come closest to litigation when a plant has

been denied certification by the program. Of course, what we have to protect

us there is our process of certification. This includes a step by step

application procedure. This begins with a letter of interest requesting

information which may include contract documents. When a properly completed

contract and payment for the inspection is received arrangements are made for

an inspection. When the inspection is successfully completed the plant is

recognized as being certified. Initial certification is probational until the

plant passes a second inspection. In addition to probation, the program has a

decertification and an appeal process.

Quality assurance, to be effective has to be ongoing. PCI's program has three

inspections a year, two of which are unannounced. This makes scheduling three

inspections a year at 130 plants less difficult since two of the visits do not

require coordination with the plant. The inspections for the program have

been performed by an engineering firm from Nashville, Tennessee since its

inception. Every inspector is a graduate engineer and some are certified

Professional Engineers. All initial inspections are done by one of three

individuals who are P.E.'s in anywhere from 9 to 13 states. PCI's program is

62
viable because it uses credible inspectors.

In regard to the standards, we use the PCI Quality Control Manuals, MNL116 and

MNL117, and for glass fiber reinforced concrete (GRFC) we have a "Recommended

Practice for Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete Panels." We do not try to write

standards, but accept what ASTM, ACI or others develop. For example, some

precast procedures do not have concrete batching operations; therefore, the

program requires that they should use an operation recognized by the National

Ready Mixed Concrete Association or meet their requirements.

Listening to Mr. Anderson, I find that PCI may be doing things wrong because

our inspectors go into a plant and say that it has a confirmed capability, has

the equipment, has competent personnel, and is operating in accordance with

the industry standards. I doubt that PCI is going to change that. What the

program does is grade each production facility using a weighted checklist

where 80% or more in compliance is the minimum acceptable grade for

certification. There are 140 items identified in MNL116 and a similar number

in MNL117. There are six major areas to each inspection report, and the

applicant must meet minimum standards in each area. A grade of 70 or better

must be obtained in each section with a total overall grade of 80. So PCI is

accepting plants that are not perfect. This is done, not because we are

polite, but because the program is designed to improve a plant's Q.C. program.

The inspections help them improve their program by pointing out shortcomings,

potential problems and recommendations for improvement. We believe this is

very important. There is no sense in having an inspection if it doesn't

generate viable feedback.

The restraint of trade issue has always been a consideration in our program.

The program is open to any producer who is interested. We recently had a

septic tank manufacturer who wanted to provide products for a prison. They

failed their first inspection when they were unable to get 800 psi concrete

out of a state approved mix. This same producer had been approved by other

programs indicating another potential problem, that our standards may be more

stringent. PCI believes that everyone should be using the same standard. I

personally have had the privilege of running a precast plant in the past.

When I took that plant over, they had to test in the morning to see if the

concrete had reached required stripping strength. The foreman would go out to

the product and with a key he would scratch along the concrete; if the color

was gray it wasn't hard yet, if it was white it was hard. That was the

plant's quality control program!

We have recently had to face the fact that, with the advent of GFRC and other

types of precast products, foreign manufacturers will be bidding and obtaining

some jobs. The first one which we became involved with was in Mexico which

has a tremendous labor advantage. One U. S. producer went across the border

and his labor costs went from $4 an hour to $4 a day. PCI does have a

designated program which will allow us to go outside the U.S. Canada is a

different situation since they have their own certification program for their

precast industry. PCI has a reciprocal arrangement with Canada. We have had

some inquiries from Singapore in getting some plants certified. We notified

them that we would be happy to go to Singapore and provide the certification,

but we have not had any response as yet.

Again, restraint of trade is a consideration that has to be addressed at all

times. I am often asked why anyone would want one of our reports, since they

63
are often negative. I respond that they may be liable for not having one.

The question is, if there is an instrument available to help you do your job

better, are you potentially liable for not using it? In Illinois we have a

"Good Samaritan" law that says that you can't be sued if you stop at an

accident and help somebody to the best of your knowledge. But if they can

prove that you didn't utilize the best of your knowledge, such as a doctor,

they can sue you. I think some lawyers, or some engineers, may be falsely

under the impression that if they do not go on a job site that they are not

liable. However, this may not be true if in their realm of responsibility

they should have gone there. So possibly using this reasoning, it may be the

responsibility of the plant to participate in the program since thereby they

may reduce some of their problems. Again, on the negative reports, I

recommend to every member who participates in our program that it is in their

best interests to correct the deficiencies found. In essence, if there are 14

items that need to be addressed, there should be a notation after each one as

to the disposition of that item. If testing equipment is found broken, there

should be a work order to have it fixed; there should be some information as

to whose responsibility it is; and who is going to check up to see that it

gets done. We have had producers hold the report and do nothing.

Again, the question was raised as to why would specifiers want to utilize a

program of the type I have discussed. I'd like to mention the certification

program of the State of Washington which utilizes our program as well as other

programs. A fellow from the State called me and said, "George, we'd like to

just require PCI's program." I said, "Well, I thought you had a program that

included other approved agencies and that it was working fine." He said,

"Well, it is. It is just that we have fewer problems with your program."

Therefore, in closing, a good certification program is a tool that can and

does serve the specifiers.
4. WORKSHOP FINDINGS AMD PROPOSED ACTIONS

The workshop assignments shown in Appendix B were made on a random basis

except that, where possible, individuals representing the same organization

were not assigned to the same workshop. Attendance records at each workshop

session were not kept, but attendance was generally less than the assigned

number. Therefore, it should not be assumed that each registrant participated

in the discussions resulting in the findings and proposed actions of the

assigned workshop.

4.1 WORKSHOP I. CHAIRMAN - PAUL KLIEGER 1

Findings

1. There is a need for a coordinated approach to the accreditation of

construction materials testing laboratories. Coordination would have a

significant impact in improving the quality of construction in this

country.

2. CCRL and AMRL are providing the type of inspection and proficiency

testing programs that ought to be included in the requirements of a

laboratory accreditation system.

3. The NVLAP program is not as broad in scope as CCRL and AMRL and does

not have their credibility even after about eight years of existence.

M. The AALA accreditation program for construction materials is not near

the stage of development of CCRL and AMRL and would require a significant

amount of time to attain their level.

5. There will be an increasing demand for laboratory accreditation since

more and more specifying bodies are requiring it in contract documents.

6. The accreditation system should offer different levels of

accreditation depending on the scope of activities of the particular

laboratory rather than just one broad accreditation effort.

7. The initial coordinated accreditation effort should be with the

primary construction materials; concrete, steel, asphalt, etc. CCRL and

AMRL have well-established programs for many of these materials.

8. There is a need for some type of accreditation for project and branch

laboratories

9. Available standards for laboratory accreditation are improving rapidly

(e.g. ASTM E329 Standard Recommended Practice for Inspection and Testing

Agencies for Concrete, Steel and Bituminous Materials as Used in

Construction), but work remains to be done to insure coverage for all

primary construction materials.

See Appendix B for affiliation of workshop chairmen

65
10. Certificates of accreditation should be sufficiently detailed so that

the client using the laboratory is made aware of the limitations and

constraints put on the accreditation. Wording on the certificate can be

selected to reduce the potential liability of the accrediting

organization.

11. Promotion of a coordinated accreditation program could be

accomplished through technical societies such as ACI, ASME, and ASCE, and

through technical publications. Workshops and seminars could also be used

to bring the program to the attention of specifying agencies.

Action Proposed

The first step in the consolidation and coordination of accreditation

activities should be taken by CCRL and AMRL by requesting their organizational

sponsors (ASTM and AASHTO) to take on the role of accreditors, possibly under

the supervision of their oversight committees. Accreditation can best be

accomplished by a voluntary consensus organization rather than either a

governmental organization or a private sector organization.

4.2 WORKSHOP II. CHAIRMAN - THOMAS FLINT

Findings

1. There is a need for a coordinated laboratory accreditation system for

the primary construction materials defined for the Conference. The

individuality of organizations currently involved with accreditation such

as CCRL, NVLAP, AALA and AMRL should be retained where possible.

2. Implementation of the accreditation system should be through an

umbrella organization such as ASTM, AASHTO, NIBS, a U.S. conference

structured similarly to ILAC, or some combination thereof.

3. Implementation of a coordinated system should attempt to minimize

duplication of individual programs such as through the use of shared

assessors (e.g. AALA acceptance of CCRL assessments for concrete

laboratories)

.

4. AALA and NVLAP appear to be coming together in that both use specific

test methods in evaluating the construction materials discipline.

5. Laboratory accreditation needs to cover equipment, test and

operational procedures, and personnel.

6. Educational programs, seminars and publications should be used to

promote accreditation along with the use of specification references and

regulatory requirements.

Action Proposed

Convene a working group of organizations clearly identified as concerned with

laboratory accreditation of primary construction materials to quickly follow

up the work of this Conference. The charge to this group should be to define

the goals, scope, format and procedures of a coordinated national

66
accreditation system for construction materials testing laboratories.

Selected individuals and organizations should be invited to insure a continuity of consideration based on the conclusions and recommendations of

this Conference. Participation in the working group should be from

organizations such as AALA, NVLAP, CCRL, AMRL, ASCE, AASHTO, WACEL, ELF/FCPA

NCSBCS, CABO, ASTM, ACIL, ACI, NBS, DoD, HUD, GSA and FHWA . It is suggested

that this meeting be hosted by ASTM and that Wayne Ellis be approached to

serve as temporary chairman based on his previous involvement with ASTM and

laboratory accreditation. Planning for this working group meeting would be

carried out by the chairman and representatives of the primary organizations

involved (ASTM, AASHTO, AALA and NBS). The organizing committee of this

Conference should see that this meeting is held as soon as possible.

4.3 WORKSHOP III. CHAIRMAN - EDWARD GALLOWAY

Findings

1. There is a need for a coordinated accreditation system for the primary

construction materials. This system should involve the present CCRL and

AMRL programs.

2. There should only be one level of accreditation. A laboratory should

not be permitted to pick and choose from among several levels of

accreditation

3. A laboratory should be inspected every two years with an annual review

of records.

An accreditation program should have an unbiased credibility; have

knowledgeable, experienced, and professional personnel; have proper

equipment; and possess the ability to adapt to changes in test methods.

The program should be operated on a not-for-profit basis.

5. There already are, or soon will be, sufficient standards available

(e.g. ASTM E 329) to govern an accreditation system for the primary

construction materials.

6. The time from when a laboratory requests an accreditation to the time

the evaluation is made is critical and should be minimized.

Actions Proposed

1. The Federal Highway Administration and other appropriate Federal

Agencies should encourage/request that state highway administrations

require that all testing of primary construction materials be accomplished

by accredited laboratories.

2. Building code bodies should be approached and encouraged to require

the use of accredited laboratories.

3. Professional organizations such as ACI, ASCE, ASTM, AASHTO, ASME, AIA

and others should be encouraged through their membership and publications

to make people aware of such an accreditation system and to promote its

use to the utmost.

67
4. Future development of accreditation systems should provide for local

or state involvement in order to make these systems work.

5. NVLAP should not move forward to establish an independent laboratory

accreditation program buti instead, NVLAP officials should enter the

dialogue with other sponsors of this Conference and help develop a

harmonized, coordinated system.

6. ASTM and sponsors of this Conference should be encouraged to continue

their efforts to reach other organizations to establish policies and to

promote the coordination of accreditation of construction materials

testing laboratories. These efforts should include the accrediting of the

accrediting bodies.

4.4 WORKSHOP 17. CHAIRMAN - WILLIAM GUNDERMAN

Findings

1. There is definitely a need for a coordinated laboratory accreditation

system for the primary construction materials.

2. Problems are created by multiple standards for the same construction

materials such as may occur for standards of ASTM, AASHTO, or State DoT's.

3. Periodic follow-up evaluation of laboratory performances must be part

of the accreditation system.

4. The current system where a laboratory may be required to hold several

evaluations and accreditations is causing problems relative to costs and

impact on operations.

5. Standards for accreditation are currently well developed, but

procedures and acceptance levels for accrediting or disaccrediting are

non-existent except for NVLAP. International standards for accreditation

should be used where possible.

6. There is a need for a major educational and/or sales approach to

promote acceptance of the system.

7. There should be a minimum scope of accreditation for any given

material area such as concrete.

8. If CCRL and AMRL were to expand into accreditation, these services

should be marketed as a joint program where applicable. It would be

desirable to schedule a common visit by these two inspecting agencies.

9. The format of the accreditation certificate should be appropriate for

public display, be relatively simple and, where necessary, be backed up

with other documents such as a scope statement. The laboratory commitment

should be indicated by a signature on the part of the laboratory, but not

necessarily on the certificate.

10. The ideal way to gain acceptance of a coordinated accreditation

68
system is by reference in specifications. There is a need for better

dissemination of current information on laboratory inspection and

accreditation systems.

Action Proposed

An executive summary of the Conference and workshops should be published and

widely distributed to gain the kind of publicity needed to implement a

coordinated accreditation system.

5. RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE CONFERENCE

After presentation of the workshop reports and extensive discussion by

Conference participants, there was a strong consensus on the following two

issues:

1. There is a need for a coordinated national system for the

accreditation of construction materials testing laboratories and its

development should be initiated.

2. An Executive Summary including findings and proposed actions of the

workshops and recommendations of the Conference should be prepared as

quickly as possible.

The following recommendations were moved, discussed and passed by the

Conference participants.

1. ASTM should, without delay, host a working group of organizations

clearly identified as concerned with laboratory accreditation and with

principal emphasis on construction materials testing. The charge to the

working group should be to define the goals, scope, format and procedures

of such a coordinated laboratory accreditation system. Participation in

the working group should be by special invitation to individuals from

organizations such as: AALA, AASHTO, AMRL, ASCE, CABO, CCRL, DoD,

EFL/FCPA, FHWA, GSA, HUD, NBS, NCSBCS, NVLAP and WACEL. Efforts should be

made to keep this group small and thus assure that everyone is heard and

progress is furthered. Wayne Ellis was recommended as the chairman of the

working group if he would agree to serve. A small planning group to

organize the meeting should be established consisting of the chairman and

representatives of groups such as AALA, AASHTO, ASTM and NBS. The

organizers of this Conference should take a lead role in assuring that the

working group meeting on the development of a coordinated laboratory

accreditation system is expedited to maintain the momentum from this

Conference.

2. NVLAP should not move forward to establish an independent laboratory

accreditation program for construction materials but, instead, NVLAP

officials should enter the dialogue with sponsors of this Conference and

help develop a coordinated laboratory accreditation system.

3. CCRL and AMRL should not move forward to establish an independent

laboratory accreditation program but, instead, CCRL and AMRL officials

should enter the dialogue with sponsors and help develop a coordinated

laboratory accreditation system for construction materials.

69
i
Appendix A

Conference on Accreditation of Construction Materials Testing Laboratories

PROGRAM

May 14. 1986

8:00 a.m. Registration (Coffee and Danish In Employees Lounge)

9:00 a.m. Welcome Dr. Ernest Ambler

Director, National Bureau of

Standards

9:10 a.m. Conference Chairman Remarks Mr. Walter Kunze

Chairman! ASTM Joint C1/C9

Subcommittee on the CCRL

9:25 a.m. ASTM and Laboratory Accreditation Mr. Peter Brown

Vice President, Finance and

Administration, ASTM

9:55 a.m. AASHT0 Staff Views Mr. Francis Francois

Executive Director, American

Association of State Highway

and Transportation Officials

10:20 a.m. Coffee (Employees Lounge)

10:40 a.m. National and International Standards

Activities Related to Laboratory

Accreditation Mr. John Locke

Chairman, ASTM Committee E-36

11:10 a.m. Status of ASTM Standard E329 and

Other Related Standards Mr. Spencer Thew

Chairman, ASTM Subcommittee E36.93

11:40 a.m. Status of NVLAP Activities Related

to Construction Materials Mr. Robert Gladhill

Project Leader, National Voluntary

Laboratory Accreditation Program

12:05 p.m. Status of AALA Activities Related

to Construction Materials Mr. John Locke

Executive Director, American

Association for Laboratory

Accreditation

12:30 p.m. Accreditation of Testing

Laboratories in Florida Mr. John Roebuck

Member, Engineering Laboratories

Forum/Florida Concrete and

Products Association

1:00 p.m. Lunch (NBS Cafeteria)

1:55 p.m. Construction Materials Reference

Laboratories at NBS Mr. James Pielert

Group Leader, Construction

Materials Reference Laboratories

A-1
2:20 p.m. Laboratory Accreditation from the

Perspective of a Construction

Materials Engineer Mr. Grover Williams

American Council of Independent

Laboratories

2:45 p.m. Laboratory Accreditation from the

Perspective of a Model Building

Code Mr. Thomas Frost

Manager, Evaluation Services,

Building Officials and Code

Administrators International, Inc

3:10 p.m. Coffee (Employees Lounge)

3:30 p.m. Laboratory Accreditation from the

Perspective of State Building

Code Officials Mr. William Connolly

National Conference of States

on Building Codes and Standards

3:55 p.m. Legal and Liability Concerns

Associated with Certification and

Accreditation Programs Mr. James Anderson

Partner, Loomis Owen Fell man

and Howe

4:20 p.m. Certification Program Experiences

Relative to Liability Issues Mr. Richard Gaynor

Executive Vice President

National Sand and Gravel

Association/National Ready-Mixed

Concrete Association

and

Mr. George Krepel, Jr.

Manager of Production Programs,

Prestressed Concrete Institute

5:00 p.m. Conference Chairman Remarks

5:30 p.m. Reception and Dinner at NBS Senior Lunch Club

7:00 p.m. Workshop Sessions at NBS

9:00 p.m. Adjournment for Evening

May 15. 1986

9:00 a.m. Reconvening of Workshop Sessions (Coffee and Danish available)

10:30 a.m. Coffee

10:50 a.m. Continuation of Workshop Sessions

1:00 p.m. Lunch (NBS Cafeteria)

2:00 p.m. Reports of Workshop Chairmen

5:00 p.m. Concluding Remarks by Conference Chairman

5:15 p.m. Conference Adjournment

A2
Appendix B „, ,,_ PARTICIPANTS IN CONFERENCE ON May 14-15, 1986

ACCREDITATION OF CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS TESTING LABORATORIES

James Anderson

Loorais, Owen, Fellman & Howe

2020 K Street, N.W.

Washington, DC 20006

Phone: 202 296-5680

Workshop No . : 1

Peter Brown

ASTM

1916 Race St.

Philadelphia, PA 19103

Phone: 215 299-5400

Workshop No . : 2

Michael S. Anselmo

United States Testing Co., Inc.

1415 Park Avenue

Hoboken, NJ 07030

Phone: 201 792-2400

Workshop No . : 2

Conway C. Burton

Chicago Testing Laboratory, Inc

3360 Commercial Ave.

Northbrook, IL 60062

Phone: 312 498-6400

Workshop No . : 3

John D. Antrim, General Manager

NICET

1420 King Street

Alexandria, VA 22314

Phone: 703 684-2835

Workshop No . : 3

Walter E. Capper

E. L. Conwell & Co.

Continental Business Cen.

Front & Ford Streets

Bridgeport, PA 19405

Phone: 215 277-2402

Workshop No . : 1

Harvey Berger

National Bureau of Standards

Admin. Bldg. Rm. A531

Gaithersburg, MD 20899

Phone: 301 921-3431

Workshop No . : 2

Michael A. Clark

American Concrete Institute

22400 W. Seven Mi.Rd

Detroit, MI 48219

Phone: 313 532-2600

Workshop No . : 4

Joseph Berke

Naval Civil Engineering Lab

Code L-53

Port Hueneme, CA 93043

Phone: 805 982-5555

Workshop No. : 4

William Connolly

State of New Jersey

363 W. State St.

P. 0. Box CN804

Trenton, NJ 08625

Phone: 609 292-7899

Workshop No . : 1

Joe Bhatia & Hank Collins

Underwriters Laboratories

818 18th Street

Washington, DC 20006

Phone: 202 296-7840

Workshop No. : 3

Gary L. Cooper, Assistant State Engr

Arizona DoT

Room 127A

206 S. 17th Ave.

Phoenix, A2 85007

Phone: 602 255-7286

Workshop No . : 2

C. W. Britzius

Twin City Testing Co.

622 Cromwell

St. Paul, MN 55114

Phone: 612 645-3601

Workshop No . : 1

Charles Culver

NBS

Structures Division

Bldg. 226, Rm. B268

Gaithersburg, MD 20899

Phone; 301 921-2196

Workshop No . : 1

B-1
Richard Davidson

HQ - Corps of Engineers

DAEN-ECE-G

Washington, DC 20314-1000

Phone: 202 272-0207

Workshop No . : 3

Lynne Fitzpatrick, Director

National Research Council

2101 Constitution

Washington, DC 20418

Phone: 202 334-3137

Workshop No . : 2

Calvin L. Dodl

Froehling & Robertson

3015 Dumbarton Road

Richmond, VA 23228

Phone: 804 264-2701

Workshop No . : 3

Thomas* Flint, Director, Tech.Serv.

American Plywood Association

P.O. Box 11700

Tacoma, WA 98411

Phone: 206 565-6600

Workshop No . : 2

Kingsley D. Drake, Executive V.P.

PTL Inspectorate, Inc.

850 Poplar St.

Pittsburgh, PA 15220

Phone: 412 922-4000

Workshop No . : 4

J. R. Forbes

Law Engineering

P.O. Box 888013

Atlanta, GA 30352

Phone: 404 396-8000

Workshop No . : 3

Rolland Drouin, Committee Member

Standards Council of Canada

123 Jean Proulx

Hull, Quebec, Canada J8X 1T4

Phone: 819 778-1770

Workshop No . : 4

Wayne P. Ellis, Standards Consultant

754 Bobbea Lane

Harleysville, PA 19438

Phone: 215 628-2600

Workshop No . : 1

Colin A. Franco

Rhode Island DoT

372 State Office Bldg.

Smith Street

Providence, RI 02903

Phone: 401 277-2525

Workshop No . : 4

Francis B. Francois, Executive Director

AASHTO

444 N. Capitol St.NW

Washington, DC 20001

Phone: 202 624-5800

Workshop No. : 0

Emery Farkas

W. R. Grace & Co.

62 Whittemore Ave.

Cambridge, MA 02140

Phone: 617 876-1400

Workshop No. : 2

John H. Frank

Certified Testing Labs

1105 Riverbend Dr.

Dalton, GA 30720

Phone: 404 226-1400

Workshop No . : 0

Inc.

Frank Fee, Manager Tech. Serv.

West Bank Oil

P. 0. Box 638

Pennsauken, NJ 08110

Phone: 609 428-8808

Workshop No . : 2

Geoffrey Frohnsdorff

NBS

Bldg. 226, Rm. B368

Gaithersburg, MD 20899

Phone: 301 921-3704

Workshop No . : 3
Thomas Frost, Manager, Eval. Serv.

BOCA, International

4051 V. Slossmoor Rd

Country Club H. , IL 60430

Phone: 312 799-2300

Workshop No . : 4

Mukand V. Handa

Canadian Standards Association

178 Rexdale Blvd.

Rexdale, Ontario, Canada M9W 1R3

Phone: 416 747-4255

Workshop No . : 2

J.E. Galloway, Jr.

VA Dept. of Hwys. 6c Transp,

1221 East Broad St.

Richmond, VA 23219

Phone: 804 737-7731

Workshop No . : 3

Rodney B. Hawkins

Inland Steel

3210 Watling

Mail Code 2101

East Chicago, Indiana 46312

Phone: 219 392-3271

Workshop No. : 3

Richard D. Gaynor

NSGA-NRMCA

900 Spring St.

Silver Spring, MD 20910

Phone: 301 587-1400

Workshop No . : 3

R. E. Hay, Director, R&D

Federal Highway Admin, HNR-1

6300 Georgetown Pike

McLean, VA 22101

Phone: 703 285-2001

Workshop No . : 4

Robert Gladhill

NBS

Admin. Bldg. , A531

Gaithersburg, MD 20899

Phone: 301 921-3431

Workshop No . : 4

D. J. Hensing, Dep. Ex. Director

AASHTO

Suite 225

444 N. Capitol N.W.

Washington, DC 20001

Phone: 202 624-5800

Workshop No. : 4

Roger Goughnour

Federal Highway Administration

Cons. & Maint. Dlv.

400 7th St. , SW

HHO 33

Washington, DC 20590

Phone: 202 426-6520

Workshop No . : 1

James G. Gross, Dep. Director

Center for Building Technology

NBS

Bldg. 226, Rm. A250

Gaithersburg, MD 20899

Phone: 301 921-3481

Workshop No . : 2

W. G. Gunderman

Transportation Research Board

National Academy Sciences

2101 Constitution Av

Washington, DC 20418

Phone: 202 334-2952

Workshop No . : 4

Charles W. Hyer

The Marley Organization, Inc.

11 Todd's Road

Ridgefield, CT 06877-9990

Phone: 203 438-3801

Workshop No . : 1

Claude E. Jaycox

Municipal Testing

160 Lauman Lane

Hicksville, NY 11801

Phone: 516 938-7120

Workshop No . : 2

Ralph E. Jenkins

Core Laboratories

7501 Stemmons Frwy.

Dallas, TX 7524>7

Phone: 214 631-8270

Workshop No . : 3

B-3
Kenneth Keeling

The Robert B. Baiter Co.

7646 -B Fullerton Rd.

Springfield, VA 22153

Phone: 703 569-3050

Workshop No . : 3

Joseph F. Lamond

HQ - Corps of Engineers

DAEN-ECE-D

Washington, DC 20314-1000

Phone: 202 272-0222

Workshop No . : 2

Paul Klieger

Portland Cement Assoc

5420 Old Orchard Rd.

Skokie, IL 60077

Phone: 312 966-6200

Workshop No . : 1

John Locke

Amer. Assoc. for Lab. Accreditation

656 Quince Orchard

Gaithersburg, MD 20878

Phone: 301 670-1377

Workshop No . : 3

Paul Knodel

Bureau of Reclamation

D1540

P. 0. Box 25007

Denver, CO 80225

Phone: 303 236-8098

Workshop No. : 4

Hugh MacDonald

Brick Institute of America

Suite 300

11490 Commerce Pk Dr

Reston, VA 22091

Phone: 703 620-0010

Workshop No . : 4

William C. Koehler

Pennsylvania DoT

Materials & Testing Div.

1118 State St.

Box 2926

Harrisburg, PA 17120

Phone: 717 783-8417

Workshop No. : 1

Raymond M. Kolos

CCRL-NBS

National Bureau of Stand.

Bldg. 226 Rm. A365

Gaithersburg, MD 20899

Phone: 301 921-3481

Workshop No . : 1

George Krepel

Prestressed Concrete Institute

201 N. Wells Street

Chicago, IL 60606

Phone: 312 346-4071

Workshop No . : 2

Malcolm MacLean

Ministry of Transp. and Communica.

Central Bldg. Room 309

120 Wilson Ave.

Downsview, Ontario M3M 1J8

Phone: 416 248-3696

Workshop No . : 1

Frank Maibroda

VSE Corporation

2550 Hunington Ave.

Alexandria, VA 22303

Phone: 703 960-4600

Workshop No . : 2

G. W. Maupin, Jr.

VA Hwy . & Transp. Research Council

University Station

Box 3817

Charlottesville, VA 22903-0817

Phone: 804 296-1948

Workshop No . : 3

Walter E. Kunze Jo*m Melander

Portland Cement Association Riverton Corporation

5420 Old Orchard Rd. Rt 637

Skokie, IL 60077 P.O. Box 300

Phone: 312 966-6200 Riverton, VA 22651

Workshop No.: 1 Phone: 703 635-4131

Workshop No. : 4

B-4
Cyril M. Miller

U.S. Army Corps of Engrs.

Baltimore District

P. 0. Box 1715

Baltimore, MD 21203

Phone: 301 962-3164

Workshop No. : 4

Joseph O'Neil

American Council of Independ. Labs.

1725 K Street N.W.

Washington, DC 20006

Phone: 202 887-5872

Workshop No. : 3

Terry Patzias

Dundee Cement Co.

P. 0. Box 122

Dundee, MI 48104

Phone: 313 529-2411

Workshop No . : 1

John T. Paxton, P.E.

Ohio Department of Transportation

Bureau of Testing

1600 W. Broad St.

Columbus, OH 43223-1298

Phone: 614 275-1301

Workshop No . : 2

Adrian Pelzner

U.S. Forest Service

2704 Soapstone Drive

Reston, VA 22091

Phone: 703 860-0027

Workshop' No . : 1

James H. Pielert, Group Leader

Construction Materials Ref . Labs

NBS

Bldg. 226, Room A365

Gaithersburg, MD 20899

Phone: 301 921-3481

Workshop No . : 2

Maxie Pruitt

Tri- County Concrete Corp.

Carolina's Ready-Mix Asso

P. 0. Box 9097

Hanahan, SC 29410

Phone: 803 744-5731

Workshop No. : 3

Paul S. Quigg, Sr. Research Assoc.

USG Corporation

700 North Highway 45

Libertyville, IL 60048

Phone: 312 362-9797

Workshop No . : 4

Michael Rafalowski

Federal Highway Administration

Construction & Maint. Div

400 7th St. , SW

HHO 33

Washington, DC 20590

Phone: 202 426-0436

Workshop No. : 1

Thomas Ridgway

DMSS0

Suite 1403

2 Skyline PI.

Falls Church, VA 22043

Phone: 703 756-2343

Workshop No . : 2

John P. Roebuck

Florida Mining & Materials Co

P.O. 23965

Tampa, FL 33630

Phone: 813 933-6711

Workshop No . : 3

Thomas R. Rutherford, P.E.

NAVFAC 04M2

200 Stovall St.

Alexandria, VA 22332

Phone: 202 325- -356

Workshop No . : 4

John M. Scanlon

USA Corps of Engineers

Waterways Exp. Sta.

P.O. Box 631

Vicksburg, MS 39180

Phone: 601 634-3277

Workshop No. : 1

James R. Scarazzo

The Robert B. Baiter Co.

7646 -B Fullerton Rd.

Springfield, VA 22153

Phone: 703 569-3050

Workshop No . : 2

B-5
Jrlan Sheffler

Phoenix , Inc

.

P.O. Box 676

Frederick, MD 21701

Phone: 301 663-3129

Workshop No. : 3

Frank M. Stia

New Jersey DoT

999 Parkway Ave.

Trenton, NJ 08255

Phone: 609 292-3461

Workshop No. : 3

Lawrence L. Smith, Mtls. & Res.

Florida DoT - BM&R

2006 N.E. Waldo Rd.

P. 0. Box 1029

Gainesville, FL 32602

Phone: 904 372-5304

Workshop No . : 4

David A. Smith, Jr.

City of Akron, Ohio

Building Inspection Dept.

166 S. High St. R100

Akron, OH 44308

Phone: 216 375-2220

Workshop No. : 1

Spencer F. Thew

Atlantic Testing Labs, Ltd.

Box 29

Canton, NY 13617

Phone: 315 386-4578

Workshop No . : 4

Frank T. Wagner

North Carolina DoT

P.O. Box 25201

Raleigh, NC 27611

Phone: 919 733-7411

Workshop No . : 1

Peter A. Spellerberg

AASHTO Materials Reference Lab.

National Bureau of Stds.

Bldg. 226, Rm. A365

Gaithersburg, MD 20899

Phone: 301 921-3481

Workshop No . : 3

Marc Walsh, Staff Member

Standards Council of Canada

Suite 1203

350 Sparks St.

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada KIR 7S8

Phone: 613 238-3222

Workshop No.: 2

L. U. Spellman

Apt. 115

2918 Ranch Rd. 620 N

Austin, TX 78734

Phone: 512 266-3533

Workshop No . : 3

Marvin S. Ward, Jr.

Carolines Ready Mixed Concrete

P. 0. Box 11064

Charlotte, NC 28220

Phone: 704 525-2180

Workshop No . : 3

Garland W. Steele

West Virginia Dept. of Highways

1900 Washington St.E

Charleston, WV 25301

Phone: 304 348-3100

Workshop No . : 4

Charles Whitcomb

The Robert fi. Baiter Co.

7646 -B Fullerton Rd.

Springfield, VA 22153

Phone: 703 569-30S0

Workshop No . : 4

R. J. Stephenson, Director

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

S. Atlantic Div. Lab.

611 South Cobb Dr.

Marietta, GA 30060-3112

Phone: 404 429-5296

Workshop No . : 2

Grover C. Williams

Trinity Engineering Testing Corp

3601 Manor Road

Austin, TX 78723

Phone: 512 926-6650

Workshop No . : 1

B-6
Appendix C

Guidelines for Workshop Chairmen

Each workshop will have approximately six hours to work together following the

presentation of prepared talks. The workshops will begin work on the evening

of May 14th at 7:00 p.m. and continue until 9:00 p.m. It is anticipated that

this time will be taken to introduce the subject matter, prepare an outline of

the potential topics to be discussed, plan on how best to carry out activity,

and to initiate indepth discussion. The workshop session on the morning of

May 15 from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. will be for indepth discussion of the

issues and the development of conclusions and recommendations for presentation

to the full conference.

Each workshop room will be provided with a viewgraph, flip charts, blackboard

space, and a staff support person to assist the chairman. The chairman should

select a workshop participant to keep the record of the discussions and

conclusions. There will be no recording of the workshop proceedings. The

conclusions and recommendations of the workshop will be summarized in a report

which will be delivered by the chairman to the full conference on the

afternoon of May 15th. The prepared talks and the workshop reports will be

recorded. Typing support will be available to assist in preparing the

reports

Each workshop is to address the Conference hypothesis that "There is a need

for a coordinated methodology for accrediting construction materials testing

laboratories." The following issues are suggested for workshops

consideration:

I. Current methodology that may effect performance in construction material

testing laboratories

o indicators pointing out where changes in methodology may improve

laboratory performance

o relationship of laboratory testing to overall quality of construction

o use of more than one standard for identical type testing (e.g. ASTM

and AASHT0)

II. Analysis of currently operating evaluation/accreditation systems for

construction materials

o review of the current evaluation/accreditation systems (CCRL, AMRL

NVLAP, AALA, ELF/FCAA, WACL, etc.)

o impact of current laboratory evaluation/ accreditation systems on

laboratory performance

o factors affecting the acceptance of current evaluation/

accreditation systems (e.g. cost, scope of coverage, lack of

regulatory reference, lack of economic benefit)

C-1
o the adequacy of current standards (both national and international)

on the implementation and acceptance of laboratory evaluation/

accreditation programs

III. Is there a need for a coordinated laboratory-accreditation system

or is the current approach adequate?

o review of approach recommended by ASTM Panel on Accreditation,

NVLAP Construction Materials Testing LAP, etc.

IV. If needed, what are the components and approach for implementation of

such a coordinated system?

o level of accreditation depending upon the scope of services offered

by the laboratory

o review by broad technical (e.g. construction materials) discipline

vs. review by standards for specific materials

o scope of in-laboratory evaluation

- review of apparatus and/or procedures

- reliance on professional engineer in charge of laboratory

o adequacy of available standards on laboratory accreditation

o implementation of ASTM laboratory evaluation type standards being

developed

o format of certificate of accreditation

V. Approach for gaining acceptance of a coordinated accreditation system

o promotion of regulatory references requiring use of evaluation/

accreditation systems

o emphasis on the benefits of laboratory accreditation programs to the

construction community to justify the costs

C-2
NBS-114A (rev. 2-*Q)

U.S. DEPT. OF COMM.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA

SHEET (See instructions)

1. PUBLICATION OR

REPORT NO.

NBS/SP-736

2. Performing Organ. Report No. 3. Publication Date

November 1987

4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE

PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE ON ACCREDITATION OF CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS TESTING

LABORATORIES MAY 14-15, 1986

5. AUTHOR(S)

James H. Pielert and Curtis B. Spring, Editors

6. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION (If joint or other thon NBS. see instructions)

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

GAITHEKSBURG, MD 20899

7. Contract/Grant No.

I. Type of Report & Period Covered

Final

9. SPONSORING ORGANIZATION NAME AND COMPLETE ADDRESS (Street. City. Stote, ZIP)

American Society for Testing and Materials

1916 Race Street

Philadelphia, PA 19103

10. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 87-619889

| | Document describes a computer program; SF-185, FlPS Software Summary, is attached.

11. ABSTRACT (A 200-word or less factual summary of most significant information. If document includes a significant

bibliography or literature survey, mention it here)

A two-day Conference hosted by NBS was held in Gaithersburg, Maryland on May 14-15,

1986 to test the hypothesis that "There is a need for a coordinated methodology for

accrediting construction materials testing laboratories." Construction materials

include primary materials such as: cement, concrete, aggregates, rock and soil,

asphalts, metals, wood and masonry. The Conference was structured to consider:

(1) the status of existing laboratory evaluation and accreditation programs;

(2) current trends in the accreditation process; and (3) the need for and nature

of a coordinated accreditation system. The Conference included the presentation

of invited papers and four workshop sessions.

12. KEY WORDS (Six to twelve entr/es; alphabetical order; capitalize only proper names; and separate key words by semicolons)

accreditation; building; construction; evaluation; laboratory, materials; standards

13. AVAILABILITY

|~x] Unlimited

I | For Official Distribution. Do Not Release to NTIS

fx! Order From Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

20402.

Order From National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Springfield, VA. 22161

14. NO. OF

PRINTED PAGES

86

15. Price

USCOMM-OC A04S-P80

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