November 7, 2023
Steel Construction New Zealand (SCNZ’s) and the Heavy Engineering Research Association (HERA) industry-led quality scheme, Steel Fabrication Certification (SFC), remains a cornerstone of our industry’s quality and compliance activities.
Steel Fabrication Certification (SFC)
Launched in 2014, the SFC scheme has a focus on quality – ensuring certified New Zealand fabricators manufacture structural steelwork according to international best practice. Steel fabricators and component manufacturers have the capability to manufacture product to the requirements of AS/NZS 5131 (Structural Steelwork – Fabrication and Erection).
The SFC Framework consists of four pillars:
· Technical Requirements
· Conformity Assessment
· Auditing Authority through HERA Certification (an independent auditing body to audit and certify steel fabrication companies)
· Risk Based Approach / Construction Categories
The combination of the four pillars provides increased certainty and reduced risk for engineers, builders and building officials. In the past five years, New Zealand’s structural steel industry has invested significantly in new state-of-the-art plant, machinery and technology. There has also been an upswing in the number of steel fabricators and SCNZ membership has grown with it. As of June 2023, of the sector’s annual output, 92.5 percent is now delivered by SFC-qualified fabricators who manufacture structural steelwork to international best practice.
Our Membership
As an SFC-qualified member, we’re committed to producing high-quality products following robust quality management systems and safeguarding the wellbeing of our staff. JensenSteel Fabricators is Construction Category 4 (CC4 –meaning we’re certified for the highest construction category, requiring the highest level of quality management) and ISO3834.2 accredited. We are audited on an annual basis to ensure our quality systems and processes are still performing over and above the required standard.
Like SSNZ, our focus in on quality and compliance. Ben Jensen, Financial Manager elaborates “We find the SFC scheme is a great framework to follow. It’s also beneficial to the clients who choose to work with us - giving them the assurance of the standards we operate under, greater certainty of our product quality and that the procedures we have in place and our team who are involved throughout the whole process, represent international industry best practice”.
Demand Has Grown
The demand for structural steel solutions has grown substantially in the past two decades. Today, structural steel’s share of the multilevel construction market is more than 50 percent nationwide.With this increase in demand, it’s reassuring to know the SFC exists to ensure a high level of quality management is upheld across the sector.
Compliance
New Zealand’s structural steel industry has delivered multiple initiatives to drive best practice and help ‘raise the bar’ across the sector. Today, quality and compliance are at the core of SCNZ activities and the structural steel sector is leading the wider building industry in this space. SFC ensures that participating structural steel contractors have world-class personnel and quality management systems in place. SCNZ’s Structural Steel Distributor Charter complements SFC by ensuring that structural steel is sourced using best-practice procurement – all seven SCNZ Distributor members have been independently audited to satisfy the requirements of the Charter.
If you have any questions on SFC and how this benefits the projects we’re involved in, please get in touch.
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