Underwriters Laboratories or UL is an independent product safety certification organization that has been in business since 1894 and is headquartered in Northbrook, IL. UL has developed numerous standards and test procedures for products, materials, components, assemblies, tools and equipment, mainly dealing with product safety. UL also evaluates and certifies the efficiency of a company’s business processes through its management system registration programs.
UL is one of several companies approved for such testing by the U.S. Federal Agency OSHA. OSHA maintains a list of approved testing laboratories, known as Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratories.
Most OEM companies have pressure sensitive labels on their parts that require UL approval or must meet the UL standard. If so, the company will be required to follow the UL969 standards. These requirements would cover any adhesive based material applied to the product. This would also include any unprinted label materials, laminates and inks used by label printers that produce the finished pressure sensitive label.
The Canadian Standards Association or CSA is a not-for-profit membership-based association serving business, industry, government and consumers in Canada and the global marketplace with a history dating back to 1919. CSA marks mean a product has been tested and meets applicable standards for safety and/or performance, including the applicable standards written or administered by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Canadian Standards Association (CSA), NSF International (NSF), and others.
UL tests products to the Canadian Standard, CSA C22.2 No. 0.15, “Adhesive Labels”. Since the CSA Standard includes test methods that differ from UL 969, additional testing is necessary to grant a Canadian Recognition. Once approved UL will mark the product as C-UL approved.
If you are not familiar on how to submit product to UL for testing, please visit www.ul.com and click on Product Submittal Process FAQ under “New To UL”. This will answer any questions you have regarding the submittal process.
UL costing is determined on the amount of work required for the test. Pricing is determined by number of surfaces, constructions, etc. involved in the test. Testing can take anywhere from 12 – 25 weeks to complete depending on the amount of work required for the test.
AWT is a leading supplier to the OEM industry and has one of the broadest ranges of UL/CSA approved materials in the industry. Through compliance with UL testing, certification standards, and follow-up audits, we are able to ease end-user concerns about the safety and quality of thousands of hi-performance products.
You can find a list of all of AWT’s UL approved materials at www.ul.com. To locate the listing, click on the “certifications” tab on the home page and enter AWT in the search box. Then choose the link to the file that is most appropriate for your application.
AWT offers over 40 UL Certified constructions that are suitable for various applications such as:
- Warning Labels
- Branding Labels
- Nameplates
- Emissions Labels
- Cord Labels
These labeling constructions are each uniquely equipped to function in various environments:
- Indoor Only Labels
- Indoor Only – Thermal Imprintable Labels
- Indoor/Outdoor Labels
- Indoor/Outdoor – Thermal Imprintable Labels
By partnering with Underwriters Laboratories Inc., (UL®) AWT is able to provide assurance that the materials we source through our supply chain meet the performance requirements of OEMs, retailers and most importantly – end-users. Through compliance with UL testing (test methods UL969), certification standards, and follow-up audits, we are able to ease end-user concerns about the safety and quality of thousands of high-performance products.
