Testing, Inspection, Certification (TIC) Industries
The Testing, Inspection and Certification (TIC) sector ensures the safety, integrity and quality of goods and services across different end industries through conformity assessment and assurance. The key roles of TIC are to provide conformity assessment for operational efficacy, catalyse R&D and innovation in emerging areas through verification and validation, establish mutual recognition to facilitate market access and provide quality assurance and trust of Singapore’s products and services. It is a key component in the national Standards & Conformance infrastructure supporting across industries and enterprise value chains.
<Update on Gradual Resumption of Business Activities from 2 Jun 2020>
The Circuit Breaker Measures will be gradually eased from 2 Jun 2020, and businesses will be allowed to resume activities in a phased manner. In Phase 1, besides the businesses that have been operating as at 1 June 2020, businesses that operate in settings with lower transmission risks may resume activities.
The TIC Sector has been permitted to operate during the Circuit Breaker and can continue to do so from 2 Jun 2020. There is no need to apply for resumption to operate. All businesses in operation from 2 Jun 2020 will need to submit their manpower details via the GoBusiness portal (https://covid.gobusiness.gov.sg) and comply with Safe Management Measures (SMM). Sector specific requirements such as marine & offshore and construction sectors will be managed by EDB and BCA respectively.
Businesses can refer to the MOM website (https://www.mom.gov.sg/covid-19/requirements-for-safe-management-measures) for the latest requirements on Safe Management Measures (SMM).
Update on Remote Assessment Practices
The SMF-TIC Interest Group (IG), Singapore Accreditation Council (SAC) and Enterprise Singapore (ESG) jointly conducted a webinar on Best Practices for Conducting Remote Assessments/Audits which was held on 16 September 2020. The webinar shared the best practices from the international and local accreditation community, and provided guidelines for companies to prepare for remote assessments. At the end of the remote assessment sharing, ESG also presented the available funding support schemes available for TIC players and the areas of collaboration between ESG and SMF-TIC IG. The presentation slides are available for reference.