Increasing global demand for SATRA standards

How SATRA’s internationally-recognised standards and test methods are researched and developed.

It has always been vital to ensure that products are assessed for safety and fitness-for-purpose before they are released onto the market. Since its inception in 1919, SATRA has strived to help the footwear and leathergoods industries and allied trades improve the production and quality of its manufacturing. An important part of SATRA’s work has always been the development of test methods and associated guidelines to enable industry to evaluate products and materials appropriate to their intended end-use.

SATRA is well known, recognised and respected globally as a pre-eminent technology solution provider. Even before ‘globalisation’ and the movement of manufacturing from the West started, SATRA had members in all parts of the world – often making for their local area, but also exporting to wider markets. It was essential that products could be manufactured that met customer expectations – for quality, price and delivery. With such a diverse market, it was essential that manufacturers, suppliers and retailers could reference a common set of footwear performance standards. With its global reach and specialist knowledge of the industry, SATRA standards became the obvious choice for much of the footwear industry.

More recently, with ever-increasing supply chains and production movements around the world, the need for all parties to be working to agreed and commonly-recognised quality, performance and safety standards is greater than ever, and SATRA has found an increased demand for its test methods.

Whether it is for a whole shoe, sub-assembly or a component, SATRA adopts a robust philosophy regarding setting standards. Our research laboratories establish the characteristics of the product or material necessary for the intended application. Performance criteria will be set to suit the end-use. For instance, the requirement for many materials is different for women’s, men’s and children’s shoes. These ‘SATRA guidelines’ are the mainstay of much of SATRA’s technical knowledge, and set us apart from mainstream test houses which do not have access to such information. During this process, prototype test equipment will also have been developed. Finally, test methods are produced that enable the characteristics to be assessed in a reliable and repeatable fashion.

Ensuring the value of SATRA test methods

SATRA Test methods (‘TMs’) are not published and made available to SATRA members until they have been fully validated and peer reviewed by senior scientists and technologists at SATRA. For this reason, SATRA considers its ‘SATRA TMs’ to be without equal and the most appropriate industry standards.

Our members believe this too. Produced over many years, SATRA test methods have become industry standards – recognised and used internationally by many major brands, sourcing companies and retailers, either as SATRA TM numbered standards or as part of an individual manufacturer’s specifications. SATRA test methods frequently appear in major public body tender documents (including military footwear performance specifications) as mandatory requirements to assess products’ ‘fitness-for-purpose’.
 

As a responsible standards-making body, SATRA does not operate in a vacuum, and has always represented its members’ interests at other standards forums. A number of SATRA test methods have been promoted by SATRA and adopted into national and international standards published by other standards-making organisations. SATRA believes that the initial benefits members get from using SATRA test methods to define and improve the performance of their products is enhanced by widespread recognition and adoption as industry-wide standards – either as SATRA TMs or within other major standards.

Test methods developed in response to new SATRA innovations are intended to provide members with a competitive edge, and are currently ‘ring fenced’ to subscribing organisations for a period of time. This enables members to use them (and the associated test equipment) to develop new products and features and keep ahead of companies that are not members of SATRA. Inevitably however, SATRA test methods become ‘industry standards’ and filter down to the rest of industry, such that many other test houses offer tests against our standards. While this helps to further SATRA’s reputation as the footwear industries standards-maker, it should be remembered that only those organisations that have been through the SATRA accredited laboratory programme will have been formally trained by SATRA to use SATRA test methods. Other laboratories may be using unofficial copies of SATRA test methods which could be out-of-date. The latest editions can always be checked against our online reference and purchased from SATRA (prices to members are heavily discounted).

It should also be remembered that while other laboratories may be able to test to SATRA methods, they do not have access to the SATRA guidelines and are, therefore, often unable to indicate if the product or material would satisfy a particular end-use.

The supply of specialist test equipment completes SATRA’s holistic approach to standards making. While SATRA discourages proliferation of test equipment for the sake of it, many of our newer test methods are based around concepts and developments not seen before. In these cases, SATRA’s engineering design team works closely with the research group to produce the most appropriate equipment for the job. This is then trialled in our laboratories, and technologists provide user feedback to enable the optimum machine to be developed commercially. The advantages of this process are considerable and set SATRA apart from other test equipment suppliers. There is no substitute for using equipment that has been specifically developed to work in conjunction with a test method or specification, where even the smallest details have been considered during our in-house laboratory trials.

SATRA supplies a comprehensive range of test equipment that, in addition to such high profile equipment as our slip resistance testing machine, ‘Pedatron’ and ‘Endofoot’­, also includes everything necessary to test a wide variety of footwear and components. Please visit http://www.satramachines.com for full details of SATRA test equipment.

There are currently around 250 SATRA test methods, recognisable by the ‘SATRA TM’ prefix to a three-digit number and year of issue. The latest test method catalogue is available on our website at http://www.satra.co.uk/tm_catalogue

Publishing Data

This article was originally published on page 38 of the October 2011 issue of SATRA Bulletin.

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