Phone call with Chris Surak, CPA Director of Certification

703-724-1128 ext. 231

1/21/2011, Contacted by Dave Mancinelli, Abt Associates Inc.

Call Notes:

Three fees necessary to become certified:

Administrative Fees

$1,500/quarter = $6,000/year

Testing Costs

Initial Testing Costs

Minimum of 5 test results required to make the correlation, for each
product type and production line

$400/test

To ship PB, 3 panels @ 48” x 55.5”, assume 0.75” thickness on a
palette wrapped with protective boards on top and bottom might weigh
around 500 lbs

Cost $100-$200 for shipping via third-party commercial shipping carrier
– they don’t generally see companies shipping the boards themselves
(ex: White Trucking)

Recurring Testing Costs

Quarterly tests for each product type @ $400/test

Panels to be tested are selected during on-site audit and shipped to TPC
for testing

Audits

Quarterly Audit Costs

On-site audit conducted quarterly for each product type

$450/audit

Monthly Audit Costs

“Desk audit” performed over the phone

$200/audit

Other Costs

Training Costs

Generally rolled into certification costs

If someone wanted to, they would be able to go to the CPA lab, and CPA
would set an hourly rate

Sometimes the resin manufacturer will help the mill train employees

QC employees are checked during the initial audit

Recordkeeping & Labeling

They deal with board manufacturers and fabricators

Most often these companies already have recordkeeping and labeling
systems – it is not a major task to adjust these things

Setting Up In-house Testing

Most small operations do not already have QC systems in place

They need to determine if it is cheaper to build a small chamber lab or
outsource daily testing

$135/test + shipping to outsource

Most, if not all, PB/MDF manufacturers test in-house

For HWPW mills where CARB exemption is the ultimate goal, they may
decide to outsource testing

testing is only needed 1-4/week for each product type and product line
(based on volume)

ULEF exemption requires testing for 6 months

NAF exemption requires testing for 3 months

They see a lot of HWPW mills decide to outsource testing

