It’s been five long years to finally make this announcement to you.
SITMA, as you may know, was born from the lack of a ‘home’ for testers. Testers that are intelligent business people. Testers that often conduct complex calculations as part of their normal day. Testers that are often fully qualified acoustic consultants. These testers just wanted to be able to conduct sound insulation testing and do it to the best of their ability. SITMA never set out to cut corners and it never set out to bring the industry into disrepute. In-fact, it set out to do the opposite; to increase the standard of sound insulation testing by removing areas that both certified and uncertified testers were openly using to bend the rules.
SITMA was born following an idea between an acoustic consultant, a compliance specialist, and a web developer in a café in Winchester. They set out some simple goals:
- To ensure only raw data is uploaded from the sound level meter and let the SITMA Portal recreate the full calculation.
- Ensure testers tell us where they are going in advance of them going, so we can conduct random spot checks.
- To substantially decrease the time it takes to create large test reports as an incentive to work with SITMA.
Three months later, we had the SITMA Portal (SITMA being the name we gave it after ATTMA). The SITMA Portal was simply a concept. It enabled us at the time to take sound insulation raw data from a few different sound level meters and create BS EN ISO 140-4 & 7 compliant test reports. Soon after we had the SITMA Portal Version 2.0 which included many more sound level meters and calibration features.
Before we launched, Barry Cope, Managing Director met with a high-level Government officials who gave us unconditional support, and we went for it.
SITMA Members will be aware that the next 5 years have been a rollercoaster. SITMA and its certified members have been unfairly scrutinised, despite their level of education and competence. Testers often had to ditch days of work for the sole reason that they were affiliated to SITMA, and not because of their competence, their degree in acoustics, their Institute of Acoustics Diploma, or for some, their Masters in Acoustics! For those members that stuck by SITMA, we thank you. Because:
On the 23rd February 2024, SITMA gained its UKAS Accreditation to ISO 17024:2012.
