Page 1 - 2017-08-CFR Volume 107 - ASTM Standards and Manufacturers Warranties - August 2017
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Volume 107—August 2017
Who writes the ASTM Standards and manufacturers’ warranties and how do they come to be?
First some background:
ASTM means American Society for Testing and Materials. ASTM is also Interna-
tional and not just American as the standards apply all over the world. ASTM mem-
bership is open to anyone who has an interest in any of the wide array of topics on
which ASTM committees develop standards not just engineers or scientists. ASTM
does no testing. And ASTM doesn’t just write standards for materials but all kinds
of things such as health and safety and the reliability of products, materials, pro-
cesses and systems and services. As for ASTM standards a full consensus stand-
ard is developed by a cross-section of stakeholders with an interest in its use. When it comes to flooring
this would include manufacturers, testing labs and anyone with a stake in whatever particular standard
is being worked on. When there is a need for new standards, requests can come from trade associa-
tions, government agencies, and professional societies that do not create their own standards; or manu-
facturers, consumer groups, and even individuals. The request is presented to an ASTM technical com-
mittee and the process of standards development begins. So anyone with a stake in the product and
here we mean the flooring material, can participate in developing standards. I will tell you that develop-
ing these standards moves at a snail’s pace and the stakeholders may also have their own agenda as
to what actually goes into the standard and the testing. It is for this reason
that the ASTM tests may not actually determine or address the real issue
such as the stability of a product or duplication of a problem that exists in
the field. To be honest, in some cases this is the fox watching the hen
house.
Who writes the warranties?
Product warranties are written by the manufacturers of the product who very
often in the flooring industry copy the warranty some other manufacturer of the same type of product
has already written. Just today I spoke with one of our hard surface product clients that were reading a
1 Commercial Flooring Report August 2017
