Trust, transparency, and the importance of third-party certification

Trust is key to unlocking better building performance and meeting global sustainability goals, states Mats Sándor, Senior Technical Director of Systemair and President of AMCA. “For a product to fulfil its task in the best way possible, its technical documentation should be accurate and easy to understand,” he says, underscoring that every component plays an important role in the overall functionality and efficiency of the ventilation system. Reliable technical documentation, Sándor adds, also helps in providing a fair comparison of products from different manufacturers. Unfortunately, he points out, the market continues to suffer from dubious business practices that put projects at risk of falling victim to false or misrepresented technical information.  

Sándor explains that these dubious practices emerge in a number of ways. “First, technical data are sometimes inflated and then misrepresented to customers in some manufacturers’ bids to achieve competitive advantages,” he says. “There are also instances where technical data are submitted with different and confusing engineering units, which make it difficult for customers to compare products.” Providing an example, Sándor describes how acoustic data may be represented as sound pressure rather than sound power.  

The Air Movement and Control Association (AMCA) International is one such body. “AMCA is a not-for-profit association of manufacturers of fans, dampers, louvers, air curtains, and other air-system components for commercial HVAC as well as industrial-process, and power-generation applications,” Stevens explains.   

Since its establishment in 1916 by 9 founding companies, Stevens reports that the Association has come a long way from its inaugural meeting on February 9, 1917 in Chicago, USA to its current membership base of nearly 400 companies across the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Asia, supported by 30 full time employees. “In addition to owning and operating two laboratories, one outside Chicago and the other in Johor, Malaysia, AMCA also has three partner labs: CETIAT in Lyon, France, Thomas Bell-Wright International Consultants in Dubai, UAE, and Korea Testing Certification (KTC) in Korea,” he elaborates.  

Sándor reflects on how the importance of manufacturers role in this regard and how a lot of the milestones that AMCA has achieved over the years stems from the steadfast support of its members, comprised of manufacturers such as Systemair. “AMCA has continued to cultivate a strong partnership with Systemair, with many experts from within the company actively sharing knowledge from years of working in the industry through participation in boards and committees,” he says.  

Drawing from his rich background in Systemair, Sándor says the Swedish manufacturing company also stands by AMCA’s commitment to trust. “This is a core principle for the company, which invested in a laboratory and allowed AMCA, as an independent organization, to provide accreditation,” he says. “In 1996, Systemair’s laboratory in Skinnskatteberg, Sweden, became one of Europe’s first AMCA-accredited laboratories for the testing of fans for air performance and sound, and for the air curtains for air performance, velocity uniformity and velocity projection.”