The Technical Standards for Constructions have introduced important innovations in the field of premixed concrete, among which, also certainly to be counted in the ambit of the certification of the productive Process Control System, the so-called FPC - Factory Production Control.
The Standards introduce a requirement for all installations for the production of premixed concrete to be provided with adequate procedures to control the production process.
That control must be certified by an independent third party organisation which must possess determined characteristics established by the regulations and guaranteed by the Central Technical Services of the Upper Council of Public Works through an authorisation issued following a decree of the Upper Council of Public Works.
The FPC certification must be in the possession of each installation for the production of premixed concrete with industrialised processing.
Under the formal opinion issued by the Upper Council of the Board of Public Works on 10 March, 2006, in response to certain questions presented by ATECAP, for concrete produced with an industrialised process "is intended that produced by installations, structures and organized techniques, both in the building site and in a plant outside the building site". Included in this case record:

• concrete produced in fixed installations;
• concrete produced in the industrialized installations and plants for premixed (fixed);
• concrete produced in industrialised plants installed in building sites (temporary).

The process of production of concrete should not, however, be subject to control in factories of independent third parties where not produced by industrial process, or manufactured directly in the yard, usually in limited quantities, using production processes, temporary and non-industrialised. This type of concrete must be produced under the direct supervision of the director of works who must ascertain the initial classification of the mixtures or, better still, the strength characteristics for each homogeneous conglomerate.
A fundamental element to keep in mind is that the FPC certification must never be confused with the ISO 9001 certification, which is voluntary and may be adopted by companies to apply a Quality Management System to a whole company.
The activity of Certification of the System of Process Control in a premix plant is configured rather as analogous to that precisely provided for in their D.P.R. [Regional Presidential Decree] 246/93 concerning the attestation of conformity of construction products for the CE mark (Dir. 89/106/EEC).