Quality
The quality of our products is our priority.
Every day, construction and maintenance professionals rely on the safety of scaffolding material. Therefore each individual product we use in the construction, has to be of consistent and excellent quality.
That is why our products adhere to the strictest rules and regulations in the industry and they comply with the most demanding norms in the world. We test all our products in our own laboratory continuously, and external authorities regularly audit to confirm our own findings.
EN74-1 BS (British Standard)
The EN74-1 is a European norm specifying details such as materials, design requirements and values for resistances and stiffnesses for scaffolding couplers. It also dictates the test procedures and assessment methods for special couplers.
THIEL is awarded inspection level M, meaning our quality control is executed in our own laboratory, and overseen by and independent certification institute. Our testing results are supervised by the Karlsruhe University of Technology, Germany.
The tests that have to be executed according to the EN 74-1 norm are tests measuring the slipping force, rotational moment, pull apart force, failure force and many more.
For you this means you can rely on our quality. The EN 74-1 norm is amongst the strictest norms in the industry. All our products meet all specified parameters and can be used safely. This is being continuously verified by a third party.
At least twice a year there are random checks on material properties, dimensions and tolerances, corrosion protection, coupler resistance and inspections of the results of the internal production quality control that have been performed all throughout the year.
ISO 9001:2015
The ISO 9001 is an international insitution, setting out criteria for a quality management system. Its aim is to help “ensure that customers get consistent, good quality products and services”. They do this by providing guidance and tools for companies to establish a such a system.
All our principles and procedures are are up to the latest ISO 9001:2015 standards.
The ISO 9001 is not just a one time certification, it is a long time commitment. We use the standards to continuously improve our processes and services to be able to ensure our products and services keep on meeting our customer and regulatory requirements.
NASC membership
The NASC is the National Access & Scaffolding Confederation: the trady body for access and scaffolding in the UK.
We are a full non-contracting member of the NASC, and audit every year to confirm we adhere to the highest possible standards as described in the NASC Criteria, Code of Conduct and the Code of Practice. The audit is a unique part of being a member of the NASC. “Through our annual membership audit we ensure that our members uphold best practice as professionals. This means we do not look for shortcuts on safety, which could put lives at risk”, according to the NASC.
We are proud that we are a member amongst the group of other leaders in the scaffolding and access industry.
SAIA membership
We are also a member of the SAIA – Scaffold & Access Industry Association. SAIA is a worldwide organisation and their mission is to “ensure those who make, install, depend on, or govern the use of scaffold and access equipment pursue the highest standards of safety, craftsmanship, and ethics”.
We support that mission wholeheartedly by making products that are of excellent constant quality. Interested to know more about SAIA, please visit their website!
Internal quality control
Every day we are testing our finished products, as well as our raw materials in our own laboratory.
We perform tests to verify the quality of the raw material: we make sure the measurements and values are exactly right. The material should have the correct stiffness and shouldn’t have any traces of rust before we process it.
While producing we continuously test the tolerances on our product. It has to be exactly right to continue the production. We also constantly measure the quality of the automatic welds of the product. We test this electronically as well as visually and mechanically.
When our products are galvanised, we test the quality of the layer of zinc on the surface to ensure it meets the EN74 requirements. This has to be of the correct thickness to ensure a proper corrosion protection.
Cold tests
To make sure our products can handle the most extreme circumstances, we perform cold tests on our couplers. We cool them to minus 40 degrees celsius and put them through a series of tests.
The tests mimic the every day use of the couplers, but also tests their limits. This is to confirm you can rely on our couplers, even in cold weather.