BIS delegation visits TÜV Rheinland laboratories in Bangalore

India

In October a team of officers from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) visited the testing facilities and laboratories operated by TÜV Rheinland in Bangalore, India. GPQI India organised the full-day visit within the framework of the Indo-German Working Group Quality Infrastructure (QI).  The visit was as a follow-up to an expert exchange on Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) in September 2023.

Many people from the delegation and TÜV Rheinland are standing in a reception hall.
BIS delegation in the laboratories of TÜV Rheinland. © GPQI / GIZ

Optimising QI is currently a priority topic for India. This includes the development of the laboratory landscape as well as GLP in the country. GLP describes a standard set of acknowledged rules, criteria and methods that laboratories should follow when carrying out their activities and operations.

 

The delegation visit to the laboratories of TÜV Rheinland in Bangalore took place on 19 October. During a full-day field trip, BIS officers visited 10 different testing laboratories. Each laboratory focuses on one specific product category or attribute. Focal points were digitalisation and automation processes of testing as well as the registration and storage of test samples.

 

Good Laboratories in Practice

Dr Shanmuga Sundaram, Senior Vice-President of Products for the India, Middle East and Africa (IMEA) Region at TÜV Rheinland opened the event by welcoming the BIS team to the facility. After completing the safety orientation training and introductions, TÜV Rheinland provided background information on their laboratories and digitalisation tools and processes.

 

Due to the large scale of TÜV Rheinland’s operations in Bangalore, the officers split up into two groups to visit a broad scope of laboratories. Every group visited five different testing laboratories, each specialised in a different product group or product attribute. The product groups covered a wide variety from textiles and furniture to reliability and electrical safety testing. Overall, the visit focused on automation and digitalisation of operations and processes, as well as logistical and administrative elements such as the registration and storage of test samples.

 

During the visit the complexity of a fully digitalised laboratory became apparent. It requires high-end software and machinery as well as skilled labour and adequate processes. The findings from the lab visits will support BIS's internal digitalisation and automation processes. The event underlined the value of on-site visits and showed mutual benefits and results of standardisation and conformity assessment bodies coming together.

 

Indo-German cooperation on GLP

The exchange represents an important step in the collaboration on technical regulation and conformity assessment within the Indo-German Working Group on Quality Infrastructure. The visit was jointly organised by BIS, TÜV Rheinland and the team of GPQI India. As the interest in further collaboration in this field remains high, additional laboratory visits are currently being discussed. Articles on the completed activities will be published and made available on our website.

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