good day
Greetings, I do have product qualification certificates that meet the requirements, including environmental conditioning (H,R) but still indicate the ANSI ESD S20.20-2014 standard.
Will they be valid for my ESD recertification audit?
Thank you
That would depend upon when your recertification audit actually occurs and to which standard you are being audited to. As there is a buffer of time to comply with S20.20-2021 you can today still choose to be audited to S20.20-2014, in which case your certificate is perfectly fine. Additionally, as long as the item completed qualification prior to the 2021 standard being released and you maintain verification data, it would remain qualified. Any new item however would be required to show qualification data to S20.20-2022 standard. You can refer to S20.20-2019 Sect 7.3 as well.
greetings in advance
thanks csmithtrw i just have one question
after June-2023 which is the maximum implementation date.
Will certificates that mention ANSI ESD S20.20-2014 be valid?
Or would I have to update all my certificates?
The 2014 certificate would really have no value as it no longer meets the current standard. However, it is evidence of when you initially started using the item it did meet the qualification requirements. As S20.20 allows you to Complete Qualification with verification data, you wouldn’t even need the certificate at all as long as you have sufficient verification data. Of course if your equipment vendor wishes to sell to someone that is just starting to use their product, they will likely absorb the cost to complete testing to update their certificate for S20.20-2021.
One clarification here, the compliance verification method of qualification is only valid until the adoption of the standard. Once the standard is adopted, qualification must be done per the standard. Qualification can be done on a per site basis but the data must follow the qualification test methods, not the compliance verification methods. For example, worksurfaces must be qualified per ANSI/ESD STM 4.1 which included point to point measurements and point to groundable point measurement. They must be done at the lowest Rh level that the site records and cannot be used to qualify materials for other sites.
One additional point, once the material or item has been qualified by a pervious standard, say the 2014 version of ANSI/ESD S20.20, the material or item does not have to be requalified. However, keep the qualification records as they may be reviewed by an assessor.
John
As always thank you for the communication and continued conversation. I just want to make sure I understand your comment.
So you are saying : If I used verification data as evidence of qualification of my wrist straps lets say to S20.20-2014. When S20.20-2021 was released I could no longer use verification data?
I agree I couldn’t use the exact same verification data. As S20.20-2021 requires 1yr worth of data immediately prior to the release. But as long as I maintained verification data, I see nothing in S20.20 that would preclude me from using verification data.
If this is wrong can you tell the specific part that would preclude the use of that data?
Thanks again
Frist of all, once an ESD control item is qualified under a current standard, it does not have to be requalified when an updated standard is released.
As far as using compliance verification data, in both standards there is this requirement,
"*Organizations that can verify the use of ESD control items before adopting this standard to certify their ESD control program can use compliance verification records to meet product qualification requirements."
What is key here is that this can only be used before adopting the standard. Once the standard is adopted, new ESD control items will need to have product qualification data. This allows materials that have been in the site before this standard has a method for qualification. However, new materials do not have compliance verification data to start with.
