Standards, Part 1: Homologation and you

Just after WMAW 2013, spurred on by some of the conversations I had while there, I decided to write a little article about standards. Not standards as in how well you chose who you date or how well you teach your students: standards as in safety and equipment standards. Particularly: why they are useful, why it's important to understand them, and how we, as a community, may be able to develop our own.

The original article is available here in its glorious 11-page pdf form. But I've decided to post a brief version of it here, broken into several parts, as well:

In many sports, a governing body lays down the rules regarding equipment safety. For example: USA Fencing in US Olympic fencing, the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) for combat within their organization, or the All Japan Kendo Federation and International Kendo Federation for Kendo. Occasionally there are standards from some other regulatory body that come into play such as those by The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) in the EU, or the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), or the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in the US. However, the Historical European Swordsmanship (HES) community currently has no single overarching governing body, and most of the HES-specific equipment doesn’t fall into the realm of things governed by CEN or ASTM standards, and while there may not be a good consensus on how a governing body may be formed, I hope to put forth a sound argument for pursuing equipment safety standards.

Homologation and you

First, I want to address the general idea of equipment safety standards, particularly because of the common counter-regulation meme that asserts we try to be too safe and are worse off for it. In various areas of life, we have standards that are intended to give the user a certain confidence against failure, assuming normal (or at least acceptable) use. For example: the electrical and consumer electronics codes that are intended to ensure that you don’t burn the house down when you flip on the lights or leave your computer on overnight. This sort of regulation is not generally too contentious, except perhaps when they get in the way of someone trying to save some money or time. Another sort of standard, and one far more relevant, is the sort used in sports equipment such as bicycle helmets.

One standard that currently applies to most bicycle helmets in the US is ASTM F1447-12, Standard Specification for Helmets Used in Recreational Bicycling or Roller Skating. This standard only regards the performance of a given helmet in standardized testing. In short: for the helmet type to be approved under the standard, regardless of its design, a sample of the type must pass a specific series of tests as described within the standards.  If an item doesn’t meet the standard then strictly speaking it only means that it can’t be labeled as passing, and may still be able to be sold. Because of certain laws in place, it is not uncommon to see laws that require certain standards to be met for items such as bicycle helmets and other protective equipment. In this case, state helmet laws often call out that the helmet worn must meet the applicable ANSI or ASTM standards. The reason for this is simple: a good safety standard will be designed such that it gives significant confidence that the item will protect as intended under acceptable conditions, therefore the law uses it as a specific measure for what is ‘safe to use’. But even if not legally required, the approval mark means that the item has been officially tested and found to meet or exceed whatever standards are noted. For someone aware of the details of the standard, this can be used to judge the suitability of a product to a given activity. But for people unaware of the details an approval sticker may either be meaningless or be assumed to indicate ‘this will do what I think it is supposed to’, which may vary from reality.

There is another aspect of standards that is important: many tests are performed on ‘new’ (beginning of life) samples. Not all standards look at the performance of an item at later stages in life, or in a damaged state and therefore cannot guarantee the performance of the damaged item. This is why bicycle helmet as well as other safety equipment manufacturers (particularly those in the industrial safety business) specifically note that the items are to be disposed of or exchanged in the case of damage, collision, improper fit, being past a certain age, etc. Therefore, not just are standards useful as a metric for suitability to an activity, but a user looking to become more knowledgeable can seek out definitions or summaries of the standards, manufacturer documentation and published `best practices’ so as to better understand the limitations of the certification. The unfortunate part is that not all standards are freely available.

Let’s focus a bit more on where standards fit: For companies whose products have to follow some specific regulations (the fancy technical term for this is homologation), standards factor heavily into the design process. The standards will drive design choices, and validation testing. There are most assuredly other tests that will be performed as well, but the results of those internal tests are generally going to be confidential for a variety of reasons (mainly: liability and trade secrets). Therefore, for outsiders, the aspects governed by standards are one of the few design aspects that can be verified even if this only by seeing what the standards require and comparing it to your intended use.

So why wouldn’t a manufacturer pursue homologation? A primary reason is cost, plain and simple. Homologation can require a good deal of money and time to properly prepare samples, submit them to the appropriate test houses, receive results and submit the evidence for approval. So it is entirely possible that a non-homologated item meets or exceeds the homologation standard, but it is impossible to know for sure without actually testing it (unless you are willing to accept the manufacturer claims). Another reason a manufacturer may not seek homologation is simply the lack of a standard that applies to the product or the market in which the manufacturer operates. Finally, it may also be that the manufacturer is unaware of an applicable standard, a problem that companies typically actively seek to avoid by having people who specialize in regulatory compliance.

In the next part, we'll talk about a specific set of homologation rules that get commonly referred to in HES circles.