As announced previously, the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association (BIFMA) is developing their own conformance program and logo mark for the furniture industry to use. Entitled “BIFMA Compliant,” this conformance program will be a way to identify and distinguish furniture products that comply with the BIFMA industry standards, from those that might not.
Originally, this program was set to launch in October of 2020, however, due to COVID-19 and the impacts associated with it, BIFMA has decided to postpone the program’s launch by several months. In November of this year, BIFMA plans to begin executing contractual agreements with manufacturers who may be eligible for the program, and will then plan to begin uploading product information to the registry as of December 1. The online registry will not formally go live to the public until March 1, 2021.
As a reminder, the BIFMA Compliant program will cover nine of the BIFMA mechanical standards that focus on safety & durability. These standards are the following:
• ANSI/BIFMA X5.1 General-Purpose Office Chairs
• ANSI/BIFMA X5.4 Lounge & Public Seating
• ANSI/BIFMA X5.5 Desk / Table Products
• ANSI/BIFMA X5.6 Panel Systems
• ANSI/BIFMA X5.9 Storage Units
• ANSI/BIFMA X5.11 General-Purpose Large Occupant Office Chairs
• ANSI/BIFMA X6.1 Educational Seating
• BIFMA X6.4 Occasional-Use Seating
• ANSI/SOHO S6.5 Small Office / Home Office
To be eligible for the program, in addition to some administrative tasks with BIFMA, companies will need to have product tested in an ISO 17025 accredited lab with the relevant BIFMA standards included in the scope of that accreditation. This is to ensure compliance with the appropriate BIFMA standard(s) as well as meeting the expectations specified within BIFMA PC-2020. The BIFMA PC-2020 document is entitled BIFMA Product Conformance Requirements and was created to specify the minimum expectations for assessing a product when there is a claim or statement of conformance to a BIFMA standard.
Bureau Veritas is a member of BIFMA and actively participates within some of the technical committees that maintain these testing standards. Bureau Veritas has testing labs located throughout the world that are capable and experienced with testing furniture to the BIFMA standards.
For more details about Bureau Veritas furniture testing services, please contact info@us.bureauveritas.com
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