Maintenance of sports equipment: Quality guarantees safety.
This amalgamation has created clear, straightforward regulations for sports equip-ment maintenance, guarantees the safety of the equipment and offers guarantees for its operations. The maintenance companies are inspected annually by a neutral, qualified auditing body to ensure that they meet the high quality requirements. They must regularly account for the award of the certification mark. This ensures a quality committee consisting of, among others, representatives of the public-law insurers, the Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund (DOSB) (German Olympic Sports Alliance), the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Sportämter (ADS) (Consortium of German Sports Agencies) and the Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft (BISp) (Federal Insti-tute for Sports Science).
Advantages for sports facilities operators
For operators of sports venues, there are the following advantages for contracting to agents which are part of the Gütegemeinschaft Sportgeräte e.V.:
The Sportministerkonferenz (sports minister conference) of the States in the Federal Republic of Germany issued the bulletin “Instructions for the maintenance of sports equipment” and, therein, recommended contracting to companies that have under-gone quality control in accordance with RAL-GZ 945, or a comparable certification, to do the maintenance work.
This means the serviceability of the sports facilities can be represented risk-free in respect of accident and liability insurers.
Even with the award of contract, the operator is guaranteed all requirements of an operational, qualitative and organisational nature, which the contractor is supposed to meet.
This does not apply to the extensive checking of the work carried out, because the checking system of the quality control guarantees flawless work, for which the com-pany carrying out the work is liable.
Well-maintained sports equipment has a longer life-span and the number of unused items of equipment remains low in the long term.
Certified work using the RAL seal of quality
The competence and the achievements of the member companies are certified using the certification mark RAL-GZ 945 of the RAL Institute (Deutsches Institut für Gütesicherung und Kennzeichnung e.V. – German Institute for Quality Control and Labelling). This certification mark guarantees that:
Companies carrying the certification mark have adequate, long-spanning experience in the field of sports equipment maintenance, employ qualified members of staff and possess sufficient spare parts storerooms and suitable vehicles.
The compliance with and adherence to the technical job specification (specifications) for each type of sports equipment establishes the respective scale of the maintenance on a general basis.
A checking system determined by the RAL certification mark GZ 945 (obligation for self-supervision and verification of the defined quality requirements by an independent, suitably qualified external auditor) guaranteeing the consistent quality standards.
The interests of the consumer will be represented by a representative from the area of public funding, the accident insurer and the sport in the appropriate committee GZ 945 for the issuing of the RAL certification mark, which checks the quality con-trol.
The quality control association is supported by subsequent, neutral consumer repre-sentatives that incorporate and observe the interests of those participating in sports into the quality control association: the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Sportämter (ADS) (Consortium of German Sports Agencies), Deutsche gesetzliche Unfallversi-cherung (DGUV) (German statutory accident insurance), Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft (BISp) (Federal Institute for Sports Science), Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund (DOSB) (German Olympic Sports Alliance), Verwaltungsberufsgenossenschaft (VBG) (Administration Department for the Accident Prevention & Insurance Association).
The member companies: Gotthilf Benz Turngerätefabrik GmbH & Co. KG, fortuna s-i-b, G. Paulig e. K., Kübler Sport GmbH, Otto Müsse Turn- und Sportgeräte GmbH, SPORTCO GmbH, SPORTCO Sportgeräte-Service GmbH, Sport-Thieme GmbH, FRATUFA Frankenthaler Turngerätefabrik GmbH & Co. KG
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