Amongst our New Year activities, R-Tech Services annually completes its UKAS surveillance. This surveillance visit by a technical assessor assures that R-Tech continues to meet the requirements of an independent test lab as set out in ISO 17025 as well as the requirements given in the testing standards for which we are accredited.

Our latest surveillance was seen to be a major success for our quality management team, with our lowest number of Mandatory Improvement Actions to date. This success is the result of the experience and careful management of our Laboratory Manager, Russell Chiplen who has over 30 years’ experience managing testing laboratories and quality management systems. His ability to keep the quality management system up-to-date, through a year of relocation disruption, continued investment and increasing scope, is testament to his attention to detail and pro-active approach to this work.

In addition to this surveillance, R-Tech has requested extension of scope for the following tests:

– Tensile Testing of Couplers to ISO 15835

– Cyclic Load Testing of Couplers to ISO 15835

– Tensile Testing to 1500kN

– Fatigue Testing to 400kN

These tests have been demonstrated to UKAS’s Technical Assessor and will be added to the scope in due course. Our UKAS assessor has been visiting the laboratory for 10 years and we have found his technical knowledge, careful assessment, and helpful input to be invaluable in helping us maintain and improve the standard of our testing.