Spratt calls for solid reman standards

BRIAN Spratt, chief of the IAAF, has called for the industry to introduce production standards for remanufactured parts.
Responding to a question at the IAAF conference on Thursday Spratt said: “There isn’t anything as yet [to standardise quality of remanufactured units] although there are some standards that we are drafting with BSI and there is an ISO standard under development – we’ve thrown a few pebbles in the pond to help but it is a matter of making sure that things are laid down properly.”
Clarifying his thoughts after the event, he added that it was important to keep separate the issue of letting customers know that exchange parts have been fitted to their car, which would be part of a garage code, and the quality of parts themselves: “There is the garage standard and there is the remanufacturing standard and the two are quite separate. The garage standard is to do with the way that customers are handled, whereas an industry standard is more of an engineering standard.” He added that he would like to see clearer definitions of terms used such as ‘remanufactured’ ‘reconditioned and ‘refurbished’.
At the conference, he sounded a note of warning about being sure that any legislation makes identifying the standard of parts easier, not harder. “I would hate to see something in remanufacturing as nebulous as the various garage codes,” he concluded.