Warning – Is Your New Building and Steelwork Legal? - BS EN 1090 Compliance

From 2014 you have had no choice. If you do not hold BS EN 1090 certification, you cannot trade! The harmonised standard, ‘BS EN 1090 Execution of steel and aluminium structures’, made it an offence to supply fabricated structural steelwork or aluminium that does not conform to the Standard.

As a result of the change of regulations, you must meet the Standard. In addition your structural steel or aluminium products must carry the CE Mark or the UK equivalent, the UKCA Logo. In order to be able to use the Mark or Logo for Steel fabrications, you must gain BS EN 1090 certification.

The Construction Products Directive (CPD) of 1989 Led the Way

Fabricated steel products and critical construction products are obviously safety critical. The CPD was introduced to provide a common framework for the manufacture and supply of these products in Europe. The 2014 BS EN requirement now moves that forward. Organisations which manufacture or supply these under the CPD are now subject to the legal requirements and for fabricated steel to compy to the BS EN 1090 Standard and to display the CE Mark or UKCA Logo. Clients and Contractors are only permitted to use firms that have the CE Mark / UKCA Logo with a specific ‘Execution Class’ appropriate for the project, as defined in BS EN 1090-1.

BS EN 1090 and its constituent parts

There are three parts to the ‘BS EN 1090 Execution of steel structures and aluminium structures – Technical requirements for steel structures’. For the purpose of Certification, the three parts are as follows…

1. CE Marking: The requirements for assessing and verifying product or service conformity.
2. The technical requirements in manufacture and assembly of steel structures.
3. Technical requirements in the manufacture and assembly of aluminium structures.

These three parts ensure that all aspects of manufacture and sales within structural fabrication organisations are affected. Of course, with this spread, the responsibility runs deep. Under the BS EN 1090 Standard you should ensure that specific personnel will need training to ensure professional appreciation of the implications of the legal responsibility. We can expect that the following groups will be affected…

• Directors, middle management, operational management and site management.
• Quality assurance and quality control staff.
• Construction and civil engineers, possibly design and development staff.
• Inspection, testing and possibly audit personnel (if ISO 9001 certified).
• Procurement and customer liaison staff.

In effect, in the BS EN 1090 Standard, any aspect of manufacturing process control has a hand in the final safety outcome of the product.