KOMO Quality Mark for the building industry: internationally appreciated

KOMO is a Dutch certification foundation, founded in 1962. KOMO has been internationally recognised for decades. The KOMO certification is an international quality standard that provides guarantees for both the supply and demand sides of the building industry. It is a highly trusted quality mark that contributes to quality and safety, declares fitness for use and, through third party control, renders trust to the market. This strongly facilitates the market and enables insurability. The KOMO Quality Mark is 100% voluntary and independent. It owes its success purely to intrinsic values that are recognised also by international market players.

Objective assessment by independent experts

A KOMO certificate is not a non-committal matter. On the contrary, the KOMO Quality Mark owes its reputation primarily to the fact that there is objective assessment performed by independent experts: certification institutes that have been appointed by a national Accreditation Council. They have the exclusive authority to issue KOMO quality declarations.

There are about 6.300 KOMO certificates and about 4.300 KOMO certificate holders. They can only carry the KOMO Quality Mark if their product, their application process, their realisation process or service meets the quality requirements recorded in the assessment directives. The assessment directives are drawn up by independent Committees of Experts under the supervision of one ore more certification institutes.

Which types of KOMO quality declarations (certificates) are there?

KOMO product certificate
KOMO attestation for the performance of a product in its application
KOMO product certificate with attestation, a combination of a product certificate with an attestation
KOMO process certificate for realisations
KOMO services certificate
KOMO management system certificate

What is KOMO’s added value to products and processes?

In building practice, it is common practice that the demand side of the market is provided with guarantees regarding products and their application. These guarantees consist of the objectively assessed guarantee that public (statutory) requirements, private requirements and project-specific requirements are met. The supply side of the market provides these guarantees by means of the KOMO Quality Mark.

The added value of the KOMO Quality Mark is threefold:

the KOMO Quality Mark is a guarantee of quality objectively and repeatedly assessed by an independent expert party (certification institute);
by carrying this quality mark, providers of products and services declare the quality and fitness for use of their products and thus meet the expectations of their customers; it gives them a preferred market position;
several assurance companies, acting in some Dutch markets, have reduced premiums when a product or realisation process is KOMO certified.

Across the border, especially in a number of specific markets, the KOMO Quality Mark is appreciated for the exact same reasons. The availability of the KOMO mark surrounds the offered product, application process, realisation process or service with the comfort of objectively determined quality assessed by independent experts according to standards (assessment guidelines) that have been determined by experts in the relevant fields based on knowledge, insight and good practice.

KOMO’s professionalism, the strictly voluntary and completely independent nature as well as its excellent reputation that has been upheld for over 50 years turn the KOMO Quality Mark into a valuable added value.

Does the KOMO Quality Mark compete with CE marking?

On the contrary. CE marking is a mandatory testing and information regulation related to a product (label information) imposed by the EU and is not a quality mark. Moreover, CE marking declares only a number of so-called ‘essential characteristics’ of a product. In general only the actual essential characteristics are declared, which does not have to cover all the needed characteristics for use and also not their fitness for use in specific situations. The KOMO mark is a quality mark asked for by the market itself and generates a host of objectively assessed quality characteristics and standards, in relation to the fitness for use.

As a result, KOMO and CE complement each other perfectly.

Contacting KOMO

Would you like certification for a KOMO Quality Mark?

Would you like to know more? Are you looking for a certification institute or do you have a specific question? Feel free to contact us: + 31 85 486 24 20 or by e-mail: info@komo.nl

KOMO is a member of the UEAtc: Union Européenne pour l’Agrément de Technique dans la Construction (European Union of Agreement for technical approval in construction).