News and Updates

All products, all locations – ACRS Scheme Note 22-01

16-Sep-2022

The ACRS brand and registered mark are recognized both internationally and nationally as a brand signifying that a certificate holder continually demonstrates conformity to the relevant standard.



To provide the surety across market ACRS has in place an “all products, all locations” rule (5.4.1). The rule requires that certificate holders have all their assessable locations and all assessable products declared and assessed under the ACRS scheme. The rule provides the end user with the confidence that all the assessable products provided by an ACRS certified supplier are in fact a certified product and meet the requirements of the standard. To provide clarity on these rules, a number of examples of how they play out are listed below:

“All assessable locations” - meaning all locations marketing under the same or similar brand names and producing assessable products for sale into Australia/NZ. An example would be a certificate holder with multiple processing facilities. This could be in single city, across a number of states or internationally, all facilities need to be nominated and will fall under assessment for the ACRS scheme. These facilities also include sites that what would be classified as secondary or depot sites. Certificate holders are required to inform ACRS of any changes to the processing capacity, the number, or the location of facilities.

“All assessable products”: as an example, a certificate holder may supply deformed coil, straight bar, or mesh to the marketplace. This rule requires that the certificate holder has the appropriate certification for each product as they are all assessable. Likewise, a certificate holder providing welded beams or hot rolled sections must also hold the appropriate certificates for both products. If the certificate holder also sells tubular products these products also need to be certified under the ACRS scheme. A full list of the ACRS assessable products may be found at the end of this document.

For new applicants, ACRS expects all sites producing assessable material to be assessed and certified within 12 months of the initial site certification. ACRS will consider extension of this time limit (in negotiation with the Certificate holder) if steady progress towards certification of all sites is being made. Failure to proceed to certification on all sites will lead to suspension of certificates already issued.

The ACRS brand and mark also have a number of rules associated with its use as outlined in section 5.9 of the rules. These requirements were put in place to protect the certificate holders and ensure the industry standards are being upheld to the minimum requirement of the standards.  The major requirement outlined in the rules is that “the mark should not be used in any way that may imply in any manner, that a product that has not been through ACRS certification process is certified”. This would include any element that is a transformed product produced at a non-ACRS certified location. An example of this would be the de-coiling or bending of an ACRS product at an uncertified/unregistered location: doing so renders the ACRS certification invalid and hence the use of the mark is not allowed. Other types of transformation would include manufacture of welded beams, manufacture of mesh, or fabrication of reinforcing cages for transportation to site.

ACRS sees the appropriate use of the mark – and ensuring that the “all products, all location” rules are upheld – as critical in maintaining the end-user’s confidence in the quality of the ACRS product. To this end, we will continue to work with all certificate holders to ensure that their product and the scheme is held in the highest regard.

If you have any questions regarding either the “all products, all location rule”, or the use of the ACRS mark, please contact our office. 

 Email:admin@steelcertification.com 

Phone:02 9965 7216


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