UNBS launches new standards

By Benon Ojiambo

The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has launched new systems management standards in Uganda.

These include the new ISO14001:2015 Environmental Management Systems Certification and the revision of the ISO9001:2008 to ISO9001:2015 Quality Management Standards version that aim at protection and 3conservation of the environment and customer satisfaction respectively.

ISO9001:2015 sets a stable list of requirements for regulators so that they can build on their regulations onto ISO:9001 standards focusing on achieving conformity of products and services to meet the customer needs and expectations.

ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management Systems Certification is a process driven approach to controlling aspects of businesses that have significant impacts on the environment, managing and controlling the associated risks.

According to Jackson Mubangizi, the UNBS manager for Training and Consultancy, the standards are required to be reviewed after every five years to take care of technological developments and innovation,.

He also said that these systems standards were launched by the Internals Standards Organization in September and are already being implemented.

This was during the marking of the World Standards Day celebration at UNBS’ Standards House Bweyogerere held under the theme “Standards – The world’s common language” on Thursday.

David Eboku, the Manager Standards department said that we have moved into international and universal markets where the quality of our products has to be observed in order to remain competitive.

“The government has worked on the harmonization of standards across the East African Community. In the past, we used to have challenges implementing because of the differences in standards that we had” said Amelia Kyambadde, the trade and industry minister.

Kyambadde said that there were a lot of complaints from the public about sub-standards goods on the market, but the government has managed to reduce those sub-standard goods by at least 30% through implementation of the Pre-Export Verification of Conformity (PVoC) program.

There will be a transitional period for certified organizations from September 2015 to September 2018.

This means that after September 2018, certification to the 2008 version of ISO 9001 will no longer be valid, according to information from ISO website.

“We want our products to meet these standards so that they can fit anywhere in the market because these standards are implemented at international levels” explained Kyambadde.

Ben Manyindo, the UNBS Executive Director explained that standards aim at protecting manufacturers from unfair competition from substandard goods more especially those imported from China.