Despite various efforts to align South African standards with international standards to facilitate trade and international collaboration, challenges such as lack of compliance and enforcement, and an inability to keep pace with technological advancements persist, says consultancy firm World Wide Industrial and Systems Engineers MD Muhammad Ali.

The South African Bureau of Standards governs testing, inspection, and certification standards, covering a range of industries.

However, Ali explains that companies in South Africa still experience hurdles owing to multiple agencies, overlapping mandates and, sometimes, conflicting requirements. This can lead to compliance burdens, administrative delays and uncertainty.

Consequently, stakeholders should advocate for streamlined regulations, clearer guidance, and capacity-building initiatives and incentives to ease compliance efforts, Ali asserts.

On a business level, Ali explains that companies typically integrate industry standards through a combination of internal policies, regular audits and management systems.

“Organisations are also required to participate in audits, assessments, and reviews to ensure continual compliance and identify areas for improvement,” he adds.

However, resource constraints and lack of awareness hinder implementation, particularly in smaller organisations. To overcome these challenges, businesses must ensure strong leadership commitment while investing in capacity-building initiatives.

Compliance with standards offers significant benefits, including improved product quality, safety advances and market competitiveness, which facilitate access to both domestic and international markets.

Further, noncompliance risks legal liabilities, financial penalties, and reputational damage, which pose a serious risk to an organisation’s sustainability and growth.

However, Ali notes that achieving compliance may include significant costs as it involves investments in infrastructure and equipment as well as training and certification processes.

Therefore, organisations must strategically balance short-term financial considerations with long-term benefits. This can include conducting cost-benefit analyses, risk assessments and market evaluations to assess the impact of compliance.

Ali adds that organisations can also explore opportunities to optimise compliance costs through process efficiencies, technology investments and strategic partnerships.

He notes that automation and robotics can be integrated to minimise human error and increase throughput in testing laboratories while remote sensing and predictive analytics can support early detection of potential hazards or defects.

To stay ahead and compliant over the next decade many organisations will have to adopt rapidly evolving digital tools and platforms.