The transaction
Acceptance tests to write into the purchase order
The enquiry asked what evidence already exists. The order decides what has to happen after the money moves.
Of the three test families, only one is still yours to design
The type test is finished, and it is a document, not an event. It consumes its specimen, so you cannot order one against your consignment. The published low-voltage sequence runs 63 heating cycles of eight hours each — 504 hours, three weeks of continuous running, on one sample that is scrap at the end. In your order this becomes a production-of-documents obligation: report number, class, construction, handed over as a condition of the first payment. That report is already inside your unit rate. Ask for it.
Routine testing sits with the works. It is in the manufacturing quality plan or it is not, and no clause written at order stage puts it there. Its cost is inside the price you were quoted. A supplier who prices it as a separate line has told you something about the plan, and the reply to send is one question: which tests are performed on every production batch, and what is the record called?
The acceptance test is the one you are drafting. It runs on the goods you are paying for, at a point you nominate, against a criterion you wrote, and you pay for it unless the order says otherwise. Written in before award it is priced against a competitor. Asked for after award it is a variation. Witnessing costs you an inspector and the supplier a bench, so say who pays for a second visit when the goods are not ready on the nominated date. The site test belongs to whichever contract owns the cable, which is usually not this one.
A published schedule, turned into order lines
| Test | The parameter your order must fix | 1.1 kV class | 3.3 kV class | Usable as an acceptance test? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Insulation resistance | Applied voltage and hold time — 1 min. at 500 V DC | – | – | Yes. Non-destructive, minutes per unit, and the only row here a receiving store can run for itself. |
| A.C. high voltage test (dry) | Hold time — printed as 15 min. | 4 kV | 8 kV | Yes, at works. Fix the hold time: a one-minute hold is a different test under the same name. |
| Impulse withstand test at ambient temperature | Shot count and polarity — 10 positive and 10 negative | 8 kV | 12 kV | At works, on a drawn sample. Needs an impulse generator, so ask where the nearest one is. |
| Heating cycle test | Cycle count and cycle length — 63 cycles of eight hours: five heating, three cooling | – | – | No. 504 hours on one specimen is a type test whatever the order calls it. |
| Insulation resistance after impact test (immersed) | Sequence position — the impact and the immersion come first | – | – | No. The specimen is deliberately damaged before the measurement is taken. |
| Impulse withstand test at elevated temperature | Conductor temperature — 95 to 100 °C, with 10 positive and 10 negative shots | 8 kV | 12 kV | No. It needs the heating rig the row above describes. |
| D.C. high voltage test (dry) | Hold time — printed as 5 min. | 15 kV | 21 kV | Yes, at works, with the hold time stated. |
Transcribed from the electrical table published for the GLT-1100 low-voltage termination family by Gala Thermo Shrink Pvt. Ltd. Its heading reads Guaranteed Technical Particulars in compliance with IEC 60502, 60060 & 60230 — verify the current edition of all three before you cite any of them. The two numeric columns are the rated classes as printed, 1.1 kV and 3.3 kV; the figures beneath are the voltages applied. The heating cycle test appears twice in the original, before and after the impact stage; it is one row here, and the kit codes printed alongside are left out. One figure needs handling before it reaches a clause: the insulation-resistance limit is printed as >10³ Ω, which is one kilohm — a conducting path rather than an insulation limit. State the value and the unit you require instead, and get them accepted in writing.
Read the right-hand column first
Three rows of seven survive contact with a delivery, and that ratio is the point. A schedule copied wholesale out of a catalogue commits your supplier to nothing and sends your inspector on a trip he cannot finish.
The middle column is where the money is. Each row carries one parameter that decides how hard the test is — a hold time, a shot count, a conductor temperature. Name a test without its parameter and you have bought the cheapest thing that can still be called by that name.
Then check you are quoting the schedule for your own voltage. The same catalogue prints a separate medium-voltage sequence for 12, 24 and 36 kV under a different pair of documents, IEC 60502-4 and CENELEC HD 629.1, and it is a different animal: four partial-discharge rows at ≤ 5 pC, a 1,000-hour salt-fog stage for outdoor terminations, a 300-hour humidity spray for indoor ones. The low-voltage table above has no partial-discharge row at all. No withstand figure above 3.3 kV is printed here, and none should be lifted from anywhere else. The binding numbers are in the edition you cited and in the vendor's own type test report.
Drafting the clause, in order
This reference's own drafting sequence, not a procedure published by any standards body or test house. Where it conflicts with your contract templates or with the standard you cited, those override it.
Name the standard, the edition and the year
"As per IEC" cannot be enforced against anything. Write the number with its edition and amendment, and confirm that edition is current on the day the order issues.
List the tests one per line, each with its parameter
Use the middle column above as the shape: what is applied, for how long, at what temperature, and what counts as a pass. A schedule of bare test names comes back witnessed, signed and useless.
Define the lot, then the sample
A lot is one kit code, from one production batch, on one delivery note. Without that sentence, "the lot" means the whole order to you and one pallet to the supplier, and you find out which on the day a sample fails. Draw complete kits, never a percentage of a mixed-code order, and say that kits destroyed by testing are replaced free.
Say who draws them, and when
The most weight for the fewest words on this page. Samples selected by the supplier are a demonstration. Samples drawn by your representative from packed, marked stock after packing is complete are a test.
Decide the retest before you need it
How many kits are redrawn, by whom, whether that result is final, and what a second failure does to the rest of the lot. Unwritten, this is argued for a month while the goods sit in your store.
Hang the last payment on the certificate, not the delivery note
A clause with no money against it is a request. Withhold a stated percentage until the test certificates, the retained sample and the traceability record arrive.
Not published: which tests are actually run on production
Every electrical table in this manufacturer's datasheets and catalogues describes a design sequence run on a specimen. Searching the full published set returns no routine test schedule, no sampling plan and no batch test certificate. That is not evidence production goes untested. The master catalogue states the factory runs a laboratory for all the routine product tests as per international standards, and the works holds ISO 9001:2015 with its own high-voltage, partial-discharge and product-testing laboratories, so a plan exists. But that sentence names no test, no frequency and no record, and you cannot buy against a sentence. Request three things by name before award: the manufacturing quality plan for your item, the list of tests performed on every production batch, and one completed batch test certificate from a past order with the commercial detail removed.
What a site test after jointing can and cannot prove
A withstand test on a jointed circuit energises the cable, the joints, the terminations, one jointer's workmanship, the weather that week and the test set. A pass spreads the credit across all six and isolates none. It says the circuit is fit to energise. It does not say the kit was the right kit, that it was complete, or that the batch behind it matches the batch that was type tested.
So if the site test is your only acceptance test, acceptance happens after the goods are cut open and consumed. Nothing is left to reject, and a failure converts into an argument about workmanship you are structurally placed to lose: the evidence was destroyed by the installation, and the jointer was yours. Two clauses take most of that out. Keep a works or receipt test, so something is measured while the goods can still go back. Then close the workmanship route in advance — the catalogue behind this reference records that the manufacturer issues an authorisation certificate to cable jointers who pass a practical test on its own kits. Make that certificate a condition of supply, copies due before the first joint is made.
Acceptance usually fails on the count, not on a test
The supplier's own literature says in advance where the argument will start. The published bill of material for the low-voltage termination family lists seven kit components, each with a quantity. One of them — the insulation sleeve, four per kit — carries an asterisk, and the footnote reads Optional item. The note printed beneath the same table reads all kits are supplied with full kit contents. Both sentences sit on one page and they do not agree. Order "complete kits" against that and the two parties are counting different boxes. One sentence closes it: the bill of material for each kit code shall be listed in the order acknowledgement, item by item with quantities, and any item shown as optional in the supplier's literature shall be stated as included or excluded. Get it onto the acknowledgement, not only into the order — an acknowledgement is the supplier writing it down.
Eight clauses, in wording you can paste
Square brackets are yours to fill. This is original drafting, not quoted from IEC, CENELEC or any published model contract, and none of it asserts a specification or replaces a lawyer. It is the technical content your legal team will ask you for.
- Acceptance criteria. The goods shall be subjected to the acceptance tests at Schedule [x], at [inspection point], against [standard, edition, year]. Goods not so tested are not accepted by delivery, by payment or by installation.
- Lot and sample. A lot is one kit code, from one production batch, on one delivery note. [n] complete kits shall be drawn from each lot. Kits consumed or damaged by testing shall be replaced free of charge and shall not count against the ordered quantity.
- Sample selection. Samples shall be selected by the buyer's representative from packed and marked stock offered for despatch, after packing is complete. The supplier shall not set aside, pre-mark or submit sample kits in advance.
- Witnessing. The supplier shall give [n] working days' written notice of readiness. The buyer may witness any acceptance test in person or through a nominated third-party inspector. Where the goods are not ready on the nominated date, the cost of a repeat visit is to the supplier's account.
- Retest and the failed lot. On a sample failure, [2n] further kits shall be drawn from the same lot by the buyer's representative and retested. A second failure rejects the lot, not the sample. Testing, retesting, replacement and return of a rejected lot are to the supplier's account, and the buyer is not obliged to accept a sorted or reworked lot.
- Sample retention. The supplier shall retain one sealed and marked kit from each lot supplied for [n] months from despatch, and shall release it to a laboratory nominated by the buyer on written instruction.
- Batch traceability. Each carton and each heat-shrinkable component shall carry a marking traceable to the production batch and the compound lot. The supplier shall state the marking format and its position on the part in the order acknowledgement.
- Installer authorisation. Jointing shall be performed only by persons holding a current installation authorisation issued by the manufacturer of the kits supplied, copies to be furnished before the first joint is made.
Written before award, all of this is free
Every clause above costs nothing while a competitor is still in the room. None of it can be bought at any price once the order is placed.