Railway Product Certification

The aim of certification is to instill confidence in consumers, public authorities and any interested party that a product placed on the market meets all the legislative and regulatory requirements. Confidence in certification also derives from the fact that the assessment has been carried out by an independent and competent body with respect to the object to be assessed.

The Certification Process involves a number of essential steps, such as:

Assessment of the design documentation of the prototype of a constituent or a complete railway subsystem;
The performance of tests in the laboratory and in the field and on individual constituents and complete subsystems;
Assessment of the production process applied to the series resulting from the initial prototype;
The issuing of formal documentation (reports, technical files, certificates) containing the conclusions of the assessment process for submission by the customer to the authorities responsible for issuing authorizations for placing in service (Italian and European Railway Safety Agency).

Certification is much more than a simple 'Sign-off' issued by an Assessment Body. Certification provides tangible added value to all involved parties involved (primarily the customer) as it:

Increases the safety and quality of the entire railway system;
Provides a formal conclusion to the development process of a product in accordance with standards, national laws and contractual requirements for safety and interoperability;
Ensures the independence of the assessment process and the division of responsibilities between all involved entities;
Reduces the time, effort and cost of development and/or upgrades introduced in subsystems and components during their life cycle;
Contributes to reducing insurance costs;
Simplifies and speeds up the steps needed to export the results obtained in a specific country to other countries;
acts as a catalyst for a railway safety culture.