Guidance to detect counterfeit/substandard materials
13 June 2013
The Institution of Professional Engineers (IPENZ) is updating its guidance for engineers to safe guard against
substandard and counterfeit products.
IPENZ started reviewing its guidance to engineers after concerns were raised about the quality of materials and
equipment used in various industries – construction, engineering and machinery – at its annual Engineering Professions
Forum earlier this year.
The reviewed practice guidance are being distributed to about 14,000 IPENZ Members, associated Technical Interest Groups
and Government over the next few days. It is publicly available at www.ipenz.org.nz
The website link is: http://www.ipenz.org.nz/ipenz/forms/pdfs/Counterfeit-Parts-and-Substandard-Materials.pdf
The updated guidelines promote practical steps and precautions to help engineers detect counterfeit materials and avoid
using them. This includes taking precautionary measures such as verifying authentication, scrutinizing labels and
packaging and checking for certification marks on products or materials they’ve ordered. In addition, there is advice to
avoid products that lack identifying branding, or include additional markings other than from the original
manufacturers, have poor-quality labels and out-of-date product codes.
“As counterfeiters become more sophisticated, counterfeit products become even more difficult to detect, creating an
increasing need for additional scrutiny,” IPENZ chief executive Andrew Cleland said.
“Procurement through an unknown website at a price too good to be true should immediately raise concerns, but detection
is not always that easy.”
These guidelines have been updated to assist engineers, but they include practical steps to safe-guard against inferior
products, which could help anyone working with out-sourced products.
To date IPENZ has received only anecdotal evidence of sub-standard or counterfeit products in industry but any person
including engineers with information on how such materials are arriving has a public duty to notify relevant
authorities”, Dr Cleland said.
The Institution will monitor the situation through any notifications received from its members and associated industry
sector groups, working to assist industry regulators.
ends