A yard under a "factory-like" setting means a yard consisting of building or a group of buildings in which goods are manufactured.

A "highly automated" production line generally covers the use of automatic models of shearline machines in the production line (excluding the use of manual model of shearline machines) and automatic bending machines.

"Material" changes in the quality management system are any change(s) in the methodology of the key operation stages in the quality management system including material and product testing, production process control, inspection and monitoring. For instance, the change of bar coding system to radio-frequency identification system.

Yes, the approved yard shall have a staff code of conduct against bribery undertaking for all their performing duties in relation to the operation of the yard, whereas the IAT contractor is required, as a general condition of the IAT contract, to implement a staff code of conduct which shall include, among other probity issues, a statement explicitly prohibiting its sub-contractor (if any) or any person employed by it to provide the services from soliciting or accepting any form of advantages in discharging his duties under the contract.

Some possible examples of circumstances are given below where regulatory action against the approved yard may be taken:

1. The yard is found to commit criminal fraud in connection with the yard's operation or business.
2. The yard is found to repeatedly supply substandard or defective products without rectification to the satisfaction of CEDD even though no fraud is discovered after thorough investigations.
3. Repeated occurrence and warnings of non-compliance with the accepted quality assurance system, the CS2 standard and/or statutory ordinances/requirements; and without taking appropriate and timely rectification actions to the satisfaction of CEDD.

All kinds of public works contracts including new and existing public works contracts could use the off-site prefabricated rebar products supplied by the approved yard for any part or parts of the Works. Please refer to paras.17 to 20 of DEVB TC(W) No. 10/2018 for details.

No, there is no such requirement under DEVB TC(W) No. 10/2018.

Purchaser's test on bond properties are not required for steel reinforcing bar raw materials delivered to the approved yard on or before 31 December 2018. The bond property tests will be undertaken for steel reinforcing bar raw materials delivered to the approved yard on or after 1 January 2019.

The prefabricated rebar products as defined in para. 6 of DEVB TC(W) No. 10/2018 are "cut and bent rebars, reinforcement cages and threaded/coupled rebars". Hence, prefabricated rebar products are referred to different types of rebars, and reinforcement connector itself is not considered to be a prefabricated rebar product. The user departments shall therefore need to arrange sampling and compliance testing of the coupled rebar assemblies for the products supplied by the approved yards.

The approved yards operate under a quality management system to carry out threading of rebars and ensure that the threading process together with the threaded rebars/reinforcement connectors supplied conform to the specified requirements. The IAT is responsible for monitoring and auditing the yards' operation in accordance with the quality management system, and will conduct random inspection of the threading process. However, both the approved yards and the IAT would not sample and arrange compliance testing of the coupled rebar assemblies which is the responsibility of the user departments.

If the complaint is minor in nature (e.g. incorrect number, sizes, shapes or dimensions of products), the customer can lodge the complaint to the approved yard direct.  CEDD will review the performance of the approved yards in respect of these complaints regularly.  If the complaint is serious (e.g. provision of products using non-conforming materials, misconduct of an approved yard), the customer shall fill in a complaint form (clicking here for copy) and then send the completed form to Contract Geotechnical Deputy Team Leader/Special Duties via email (mkcip@cedd.gov.hk).  CEDD will deal with these complaints expeditiously and reply the complainants the soonest possible.

Subject to the bar bending schedule in the purchaser's order, the prefabricated rebar products supplied by the approved yards may include unprocessed steel reinforcing bars.  Same as for all prefabricated rebar products, these unprocessed rebars also use raw rebar materials handled in the approved yards in accordance with the accepted quality management system under IAT's auditing and monitoring.  For instance, the IAT is required to conduct sampling of all raw incoming rebar materials for Government projects and assess the laboratory test results to ensure that these rebar materials comply with the relevant standards/requirements before the approved yards are allowed to use them for fabrication or supply the unprocessed rebars to purchasers.  The approved yards will provide the relevant particulars and testing results for these unprocessed rebars during delivery to the purchasers as evidence of compliance with the relevant standards/requirements.   

There is no specific requirement under the Quality Management System of the approved yards to paint the prefabricated rebar products prior to delivery to sites. However, for the delivery of tested but unprocessed 12 m (or 13.7 m) long straight rebars (without any cut and bent) to sites, one end (or both ends for housing project sites only) of the rebars shall be painted with green colour. Some prefabricated rebar products delivered to sites may occasionally show different colour paints on one end of the rebars.