Our teams sat down to talk about what it takes to move innovative technologies from specification to trusted market adoption. The path looks different for every technology and organization.
For standards organizations, the work goes beyond developing innovative technology. It is about solving shared industry challenges and enabling broad implementation and adoption. As those technologies mature, the compliance programs built around them play an important role in demonstrating to the market what products are designed to do and what users can expect from them. Our role is to help organizations think through those foundational decisions and build the right program for their technology and market.
Designing the Right Compliance Program
Industry consortia are often formed because a market need extends beyond what any one company can address alone. The type of compliance program an organization builds sends an important signal to the market about what has been validated and the level of assurance behind its claims.
When a consortium comes to the table to build a compliance program, the first questions we ask are not technical, they are strategic. What is the program designed to ensure? What does the organization need to demonstrate to the market? Program design begins by determining what needs to be validated and what level of assurance the market requires.
- Compliance or Conformance Testing determines whether a product meets specified requirements
- Interoperability Testing evaluates whether products from different vendors work together as intended.
- A Certification Program adds another layer of governance, typically combining defined test requirements with validation, formal approval, ongoing program administration, and licensing of a certification mark or logo. That added market signal can build trust and differentiate certified products, but it also introduces significantly more operational and legal complexity.
Determining the Right Testing Model
Once the program model is established, a second foundational decision is how testing will be conducted. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, and the right model depends on the technology, the ecosystem and the level of assurance the program is designed to provide.
Self-testing: Members test their own products against defined requirements. This approach can lower costs and barriers to participation, but it places the burden of consistent interpretation, execution, and documentation on each member and may leave the market with questions about whether products will perform consistently.
Independent third-party testing: Qualified laboratories provide neutral validation against established test requirements. This model can provide greater consistency and accountability in how test requirements are applied, producing credible, defensible results while giving organizations and their members access to dedicated testing expertise and infrastructure. It also concentrates the testing workload within a manageable network of approved labs.
Testing models can also evolve as a program matures. As specifications and technology roadmaps evolve and market adoption grows, organizations can expand testing capacity and their lab network accordingly, balancing accessibility with the investment required to maintain a sustainable, high-quality program.
Choosing the Right Test Lab Partners
For organizations that choose independent third-party testing, the next consideration is how to make testing accessible and effective for participating companies. Selecting the right Authorized Test Lab (ATL) partners is an important part of that equation. Technical capability is essential, but it is only one consideration. Organizations also need to consider where products are being developed and manufactured, where members need access to testing, the maturity of regional markets, and whether prospective labs have the expertise, accreditations and resources to support the program for the long term.
The Connectivity Standards Alliance’s (CSA) Matter program offers one example. As CSA evaluated the need for additional Matter testing capacity in North America, regional coverage was an important consideration, but becoming an authorized lab required much more than geography. Novus Labs spent roughly two years engaging with CSA and the Matter ecosystem before becoming a Matter Authorized Test Lab, including participating in CSA, investing in the lab, demonstrating compliance with ISO/IEC 17025 requirements and supporting Matter-related industry activities.
That level of commitment to the organization and its technology is important because an ATL’s role can extend beyond running a prescribed test suite. Depending on the program, experienced labs can also provide training, debugging assistance, pre-certification testing and engineering support that help participating companies prepare products for formal testing.
The right lab network also needs to grow alongside the program itself. Establishing testing capacity requires investment in equipment, staff, training and accreditation, so organizations need to balance geographic accessibility and anticipated demand with what the ecosystem can sustainably support. As specifications evolve and adoption grows, testing capacity can expand with them.
Where We Fit
There is no single prescribed compliance model. The strategic work is determining the right combination of conformance, interoperability, testing, certification and market recognition for a particular technology and ecosystem. Those foundational decisions shape not only how a program operates, but also what it ultimately communicates to the market.
That is where our experience comes in. VTM Group works alongside standards organizations and consortia to help guide these decisions and build programs around the needs of their technology, members and market. Through our Engineering & Technical Services team and Novus Labs, we also bring the testing and engineering experience to help put those programs into practice.
Our team has one foot in the standards conversation and one foot in the engineering realities facing the companies implementing those standards. It is the perspective we are bringing to OCP Global Summit and the conversation we’re looking forward to continuing on-site.