About us
The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) is the only entity in South Africa with the legislated mandate to develop, maintain and promote South African National Standards (SANS) that contribute to public welfare by improving economic efficiency, improving the health and safety aspects of products and services, addressing market failures and promoting trade. In addition, SABS:
provides assurance, through management system certification schemes, on the effectiveness and validity of a client’s management system(s) in terms of quality, safety and good governance; provides third-party assurance of quality, safety and reliability of products, through product certification schemes (such as the SABS Mark), to the consumer. Products that have met requirements specified in South African National Standards are awarded the SABS Mark, which can be used to support claims of conformity to standards; and conducts testing on a wide spectrum of products across industry sectors and technologies at dedicated test laboratories in Pretoria and at various strategic locations throughout South Africa. These services remain the most comprehensive offered by any single organisation in the southern African region. The SABS also supports socio-economic growth by: - promoting the value of design and innovation as a route to growing competitiveness in the economy. This is particularly focused on applying design tools to support the growth of the SMME sector and youth entrepreneurship to create sustainable, competitive jobs (read more here link to www.design.sabs.co.za );
- conducting local content verification services in accordance with Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act (PPPFA) regulations. This supports government policy to encourage industrial development through increased preferential procurement of products and services designated to be constituted of a specified amount of local content;
- providing third-party consignment inspection services to external purchasing bodies. This assists in their purchasing operations, including the production of item descriptions, the preparation of tender documents, the adjudication of contracts and the inspection of deliverables; and
- developing and offering structured training courses for Standards and Specifications.
The value of these activities in the greater South African context is captured in this infographic (Linked Content Folder: 10a About us graphic.jpeg) Read more about the SABS (Linked Content Folder: 10a More about the SABS)
