How do you check a supplier's test certificate in Somaliland?

A supplier's test certificate is only useful if it matches the material in front of you. Check three things before you accept the load: the grade or class named on the certificate, the batch or heat number, and the date it was issued. If any of these does not match the delivery note and the labels on the bags or bars, treat the load as untested until a sample proves otherwise.

What should a cement certificate tell you?

A cement certificate should name the cement type or class, the batch number, the date of production or packing, the tests carried out and the results. Read it as a record of one batch at the plant, not a promise about every bag on the truck. Ask the supplier for the certificate that belongs to the batch printed on the bags you are receiving.

Look for the test method named beside each result. A strength figure means little without the method, the specimen age and the laboratory that ran it. Ask the supplier which laboratory issued the certificate and whether it is the plant's own or an independent one. Write the answer on the delivery note.

Then do the physical check that no certificate replaces. Bags should be sound, dry and free of set lumps. Break open one bag from the load and look for hard lumps that do not crumble between the fingers. A certificate does not cover a bag that took rain in transit. For the store side, see How do you keep cement bags dry in a Somaliland store?.

How do you read a steel certificate against the bars?

A steel certificate should give the bar size, the grade, the heat or batch number, the yield and tensile results and the elongation, with the standard and test method named. Match the heat number to the tags on the bundle. If the bundle carries no tag, or the tag number differs from the certificate, you cannot tie the paper to the bars.

Check the bar diameter with a caliper at two points on a sample bar and compare it with the size stated. Look at the surface: rib pattern, rust scale and any sign of re-bending. A certificate for straight bars does not describe bars that were bent and straightened on site. If the bars were cut from a bundle with no tag, ask the supplier for the mill certificate for that heat and a sample test before the steel goes into the formwork.

What does a block or aggregate certificate not cover?

A block certificate normally covers a sample the producer sent to a laboratory, not the blocks on your truck. It tells you the mix and the results at the time of testing. It does not tell you how the blocks were cured, how long they dried, or how they were handled on the journey.

For blocks, ask for the mix proportions, the curing method and the age at testing, then test a sample from the delivery yourself. For aggregate, a certificate describes a stockpile at a quarry, not the pile that arrived. Check the pile for clay, salt crust and mixed sizes, and ask for a fresh sample test when the source changes. The materials section has the checks that go with each material.

Whatever the material, keep the certificate, the delivery note and your site notes together, with the date, the quantity and who received it. That is the record that answers questions later. The method is set out in How do you run a materials acceptance file on a Puntland site?, and it works the same in Somaliland.

What to do next

Before the next delivery, write a one-page receiving sheet: material, supplier, batch or heat number, certificate number, date, quantity and the name of the person who checked it. Give a copy to the storekeeper. Refuse to sign the delivery note until the batch number on the certificate matches the tag or bag, and photograph both together.