IMQ, which is proudly celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2001, was also active back at the beginning of the CB scheme, as a product certification body dealing above all with cables and installation material. Activities soon expanded to include the most important production sectors of the electrical, mechanical and gas-related fields, diversifying and developing further in 1988 to incorporate the certification of firms quality and management systems.
Besides focusing on developing the domestic market, Mr. Alessandro Balossi Restelli, General Manager of IMQ for more than 30 years and Chairman of CCB for 9 years, was fully committed to the painstaking definition of international agreements for the reciprocal acknowledgement of national marks; these agreements also included the CB scheme certification system, which was initially set up within an CEE context (International Commission on Rules for the Approval of Electrical Equipment) and then became operative within IEC.
In addition to the above, we must also mention the work carried out by IMQ officers for national and international technical regulatory committees supporting IECEE, such as the CMC (Certification Management Committee) and the CTL (Committee of Testing Laboratories).
This commitment has produced results; results which on the one hand enable companies using services to prove the safety and quality of their own products on markets world-wide and which on the other protect consumers from the risks of using unsafe or poor quality products.
IMQ believes in IECEE’s goals and supports its activities for increasing reciprocal trust between certification bodies and testing laboratories by harmonising certification procedures and test methods.
This approach also confirms IMQ’s steadfast and important goal of increasing the safety and quality level of products put onto the market and of helping companies to export their products throughout the world.
