In mid-November the management of CATAS, one of the World’s leading testing facilities for furniture went to the USA to discuss current European standard EN 1728 and the new ISO 7173 document. This document could influence Australian Standards.

The CATAS team, including the Managing Director, Andrea Giavon, and Paolo Balutto, Head of the Finished Products Department, went to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to attend the workshop organized by WG1 (Chairs), the working group dedicated to the standardization of chairs as part of the technical committee ISO TC 136 (Furniture), committee of which Italy holds the secretariat.

The activities, which were attended by more than thirty delegates coming from many countries around the world, allowed the committee to deepen many of the aspects related to the future standard ISO 7173. This document will globally define how the tests, specified in order to assess the mechanical strength of a chair, will be: carried out, organized, collected, and evaluated.

The objective of the European delegates is, of course, that the current European standard EN 1728 will be the reference for the drafting of the new ISO document. The task of Andrea Giavon was then to present all the details of the European standard, with a specific a detailed report from which also the wide experience of Catas in this specific sector was evident. Giavon also highlighted the position of Catas about the objective efficacy of each test, analyzing their opportunity and usefulness according to the use for which a particular seat was produced.

CATAS: The fire won’s stop us

In another development, one of the CATAS labs in Udine was destroyed by fire on 20th December. The structure, proof machinery and all the building content have been completely destroyed, with a loss of about millions euros. “We’re from Friuli and we learned to never stop when we are in front of a catastrophe”, commented Andrea Giavon, managing director of the research centre, “We’re choosing a warehouse to rent as soon as possible and ordered some of the machines we need urgently, because we want to open again very soon and continue to give our clients the services everyone expects from us”. CATAS is one of the World’s leading testing facilities for furniture. The Udine facility was built in that region; known as the “Chair capital of Europe.” The Catas Board has planned the design of a new, larger laboratory to be built in place of the one destroyed by fire. The new building is expected to be inaugurated in the first months of 2018.