Company holds itself to quality standards

RIGA - Its chief wants customers and employees of the construction company Kolnozols Celtnieciba to see with their own eyes the quality of concrete work employees are putting into a construction sites with Kolnozols' name and logo on the fence.

"We have established our own quality control laboratory where a client can see a test on a particular piece of material going into his project," Gundars Spalis, Kolnozols' director said. "We are not simply handing them a sheet of papers with figures on it."

Koznozols, with an expected turover in 1999 of $15 million, has invested 377,289 lats ($700,000) so far this year in new technology and education to meet demands of the company's growth in domestic and international markets. Its lab cost about 30,000 lats.

As Latvian construction companies make closer ties to the West, Kolnozols is at the front of the pack but not alone in adopting European construction standards to ensure high quality results in project completion.

There are 14 construction testing laboratories in Latvia recognized by the government, said Andrejs Lidums of the Building Materials Certification Center on Brivibas Boulevard, but hardly any, even those testing to European standards, can be fully accredited because they are not independently owned and operated.

"The main point in the law is that these testing laboratories have to be independent," said Leonids Jakobsons, a state construction inspector. "None of the construction testing labs in Latvia are independent and therefore cannot be accredited," he said. Two labs are accredited, but they work on wood construction and environmental issues.

The Kolnozols lab conforms to European standards, said Spalis, and although it is not run by a separate company, Kolnozols banks on its quality tests because the lab is under an independent director.

The lab evaluates materials according to German DIN (Deutsche Industri Norm) criteria and operates under the independent direction of German engineer Dr. Lothar Quast.

"The lab has to be independent to obtain objective useable results," Spalis said.

The lab, which can move to any of the company's construction sites, has benefits for both the company and its customers, Spalis said. From the company's point of view, it can be sure of results, that the product is properly tested, and tests can be customized to the needs of the project. At the same time, the client pays less for in-house lab work than for work sent out to another lab.

"The materials testing business in Latvia is not fully developed. Labs have lots of work and can name their price," Ervins Butkevics, Kolnozols' marketing director, said.

Kolnozols is known in the trade as a 'rough construction company which specializes in concrete form work. The firm is moving into project management, a frame in which its construction laboratory could be a lucrative source of business. The company is considering whether to aggressively enter the materials laboratory business itself or to give the lab its independence and retain a small interest in it.

"I am sure this is a very good business, testing asphalt and concrete. In the future, testing concrete by EU standards will become a common place practice. Construction laboratories have a good future in Latvia," said Spalis.

Lidums, on the other hand, said he is not sure that laboratories are a runaway business because the competition will probably keep prices in line.

"If your price is too high, companies will just go to another laboratory," he said.

The law requires imported building materials to be tested, but there is business for labs in testing products that get in without proper testing, Lidums said.

But currently the Kolnozols lab is turning away business from other companies, Spalis said, because every minute of lab time is absorbed with tests supporting Kolnozols' work on the 18 million lat Bank of Latvia project into which the company will install 10,000 cubic meters of concrete. The cost of testing and studying concrete chemical processes, curing times, water permeability and weight-bearing strength of the concrete will cost 5,000 to 6,000 lats for the Bank of Latvia project, said Ervins Butkevics, Kolnozols' director of marketing.

Parliament passed a law on conformity of materials to certain standards in August 1997. Lidums holds copies of these in a green notebook at his officea long with copies of regulations known in the trades as Rule 133 which became effective in April 1998. This data covers by name 20 groups of materials subject to compulsory certification. Cement, a prime ingredient of concrete, is on that list. The 14 labs recognized by the government can perform compulsory tests on these materials, Lidums said.

While there was a free-for-all in building without controls just following indepenence, Lidums said, the sector now has infrastructure in place with local construction inspectors in 24 pagasts, with 400 local Offices. Riga district has 10 such inspection offices. These bureaus help keep a handle on what Lidums calls "black-market materials."

For builders who want to bring their projects in through the front door, Lidums has application forms and instructions for satisfying requirements throughout the process.