Knowing the lead time is very important when we do approval certification process. Especially for South Korea Type Approval, lead time plays an important role to make sure that the product can arrive to the market in time. By knowing the lead time, all responsible parties including the importer, distributor, and manufacturer can create accurate product forecast. Therefore, the customer knows when the exact estimated time they can start to purchase the product.
The duration or length of lead time depends on the approval methods applied. If the approval can be processed through paperwork method, automatically the lead time will be shorter than the Using local test. For the case of South Korea Type Approval, the approval is normally processed using local test method. That’s why the overall process from testing, evaluation, until certificate issuance, usually it takes around 8 weeks.
Besides lead time, knowing the validity of the certificate is also important. Validity is something that we need to maintain especially if the product has a long-life cycle. By maintaining certificate validity, distributor can keep selling the product without any issue. Because in some countries, distributing product that has expired certificate can cause lawsuits. Of course, this is something that we need to anticipate. However, for South Korea Type approval, we don’t need to worry about certificate validity maintenance. This is because certificate validity in South Korea is permanent. So, once the product is certified, unless there are significant changes, certificate will be valid forever.
Why We Care
As mentioned earlier, the information about lead time is important especially when we are about to arrange product forecast. In order to create accurate forecast, accurate lead time information is required. That’s why for every approval, we will present the lead time in detail, including the time required for step by step of the process. Besides lead time, validity of the certificate is also important because we need to keep certificate valid during product life cycle. However, for South Korea Type Approval, we can be a little bit relax because the validity of the certificate is permanent.