y Penny StaceyMandate toValidateIt’s Timeto InspectWhat WeExpectIf you ask Cindy Ketcherside, chairpersonof the Automotive GlassReplacement Safety Standard(AGRSS) Council Inc. and president ofJC’s Glass in Phoenix, or Carl Tompkins,chair of the AGRSS accreditationcommittee and western sales managerfor SIKA Corp., the next step inthe Standard’s process, the answer isclear: third-party validation.“Now is the time to inspect what weexpect,” says Ketcherside.The subject of third-party validationwas a lengthy discussion at theannual AGRSS conference in Novemberin Las Vegas (see related story inthe November-December issue of<strong>AGRR</strong>, page 38). Now, as we ease intothe middle of <strong>2008</strong>, it’s becomingmore and more of a reality.The group’s goal is to institutethird-party validation, through an independentaudit process, for AGRSSregisteredshops at the beginning of2009.“We needed to be able to crawl beforewe walked before we ran,”Ketcherside says. “Now, with thethird-party validation, we will allowsomeone else to come into a shopand say, ‘yes, you’re right, you understandthat we’re in the safety busi-“[The third-party validation] is going to bedesigned in a way so that [shops are] goingto become more consistent, moreprofessional, and if there’s a time whensomething incorrect is discovered, there willalways be a chance to remedy the situation.”—Carl Tompkins, chair of AGRSS accreditation committee28 <strong>AGRR</strong> <strong>March</strong>/<strong>April</strong> <strong>2008</strong> www.agrrmag.com
ness and that the windshield is asafety mechanism and that you’re installingto that.’”In the past year, the AGRSS Council’saccreditation committee has establishedfour subcommittees withinto ensure that the mission is completeby 2009. Tompkins chairs the accreditationcommittee. The four subcommitteesare as follows:• Audit Organization Development,chaired by Ketcherside;• Third-Party Audit Documents,Processes and Training, chaired byCharles Turiello of Diamond Glassin Kingston, Pa.;• Marketing and Promotion, chairedby Debra Levy, publisher of <strong>AGRR</strong>magazine/glassBYTEs.com; and• Credentialing Resolution BoardDevelopment, chaired by Jean Peroof Mygrant Glass in Anaheim, Calif.“We’re going through an extensiveresearch and development process,”says Tompkins. “The four committeesare working very, very hard this year tobring the final model to the Board ofDirectors for a vote by the end of<strong>2008</strong>.”“The only companiesthat are going to shyaway from thisprocess are going tobe those who feelvulnerability frombeing exposed ofdoing things wrong.”January 2009 (or afterwards) will bereceiving a new form in their renewalpackets.“That registration packet will includethe same things that it doesright now,” Ketcherside says. “Shopswill still have to do the self-audit,but they’ll also be signing a piece ofpaper that says ‘I am willing to beaudited.’”As for who will be audited, this willfollow the procedures of the AmericanNational Standards Institute (ANSI),the group by which the AGRSS Standardhas been accepted.“According to ANSI, the auditingprocedures say that you will have to[audit] the square root of your body,”Ketcherside adds. “So, if we have 385companies, we would take thesquare root of that and that squareroot would be who we would audit.[The selection] would be random,and we’re working on processes andprocedures for how that will work.”Once the third-party validation begins,there’s one thing that’s inevitable:the third-party validatorsmay discover things aren’t being donecorrectly. What happens then?“We’re putting together infractions—minorand major infractions,”she says. “There will be consequencesof not meeting the Standard … justlike if you were a manufacturing plantand you were audited.”AdvantagesOf course, while there may be infractions—thevalue of the validationis that it will correct these errors.“The industry—in terms of thoseprofessional companies committed todoing the right thing—they’re very excitedabout this, because it brings thecontinued on page 30How It Will WorkWhen the idea of third-party validationcomes up, the number-onequestion on most people’s minds isthis: how will it work? This was nowhere clearer than at the AGRSS Conferencelast fall, when a question-answersession about third-partyvalidation led to many queries, suchas: Who will be audited? How often?How will penalties work? Who will bedoing the work?Much of this is still to be decided,though, by the accreditation committeeand its subcommittees, and manyof the preliminary decisions havebeen made.First, shops that are AGRSS-registeredand are due for registration inUnder a third-party validation system, AGRSS-registered shops will bereviewed at random by an independent validation firm.www.agrrmag.com <strong>March</strong>/<strong>April</strong> <strong>2008</strong> <strong>AGRR</strong> 29
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