August 9, 2001 Anixter (www.anixter.com) announced that Underwriters Laboratories has recertified the company's Levels Lab. Recertification came after a UL-conducted audit of the lab's engineering and management systems. Anixter stated that the audit is performed as an adjunct service under UL's Performance Verification Program.
"We created a dozen new procedures since last year's audit," said Andrew Jimenez, directory of Anixter's lab. "These are twenty-page formal documents that allow each technician we add to the staff to precisely duplicate the work of any other. We also have full-time staff continuously developing unique lab-testing software. While these continuous process improvements increase the precision of our tests, they also increase the rigor of requirements needed to meet UL certification."
Steve Galan, UL's wire and cable manager, says the audit ensures end-user organizations that companies like Anixter are committed to the quality of the products and services they provide.
"UL's audit determines whether or not a company has a documented laboratory-quality program, as well as the equipment, personnel, and procedures necessary to conduct rigorous laboratory testing on an ongoing basis," Galan said. "Once again, we found Anixter's Levels program is based on sound engineering principles and does exactly what it claims to do."
Demonstrations of nearly 100 categories of performance were randomly examined and evaluated by a committee of auditors for more than seven hours, Anixter reported. The evaluations were followed by interviews, a review of staff background profiles, equipment-calibration checks, and demonstrations of actual test procedures.
