Concept
Vinçotte is a Belgian accredited inspection and certification organisation, that controlled 75% of the Belgian safety, reliability market in 2004. This holding is the result of a merger between two similar non-profit inspection associations : AIB and Association Vinçotte. In May 2022, Vinçotte was acquired by Kiwa, a Dutch company active in the same industry. An overview of Vinçotte's history is bound to discourse on the two competing associations that merged in 1989. These two associations were : Association Vinçotte and AIB (Association des Industriels de Belgique). In 1872, Maurice Urban, a director of the National Railway Company of Belgium, asked Robert Vinçotte, a young engineer, to help found an organisation to inspect steam boilers in factories. The "Association pour la surveillance des chaudières à vapeur" was born. Its principal aims were twofold: the inspection of steam boilers to prevent explosions was coupled with an advocacy of a more economic use of power. Its personnel was rather limited: apart from the director, who also did inspection work, only two other engineers were employed. The Association grew rapidly though, because of, among other reasons, the increasing legal pressure on factory owners to make their workplaces safer for their employees. Thus, in 1876, the Association was able to report that it had almost doubled its number of inspection visits in only two years. Said legal pressure resulted mainly in the July 2, 1899 and March 10, 1900 laws on safety and health. Robert Vinçotte was heavily involved in the drafting of these laws as, by then, he had a huge experience in the relatively new area of reliability engineering: not only had he led the Association for more than 25 years, but he had also made an important study visit to the United States in 1881, a trip that resulted in a series of basic mathematical rules for the reliability of steam boilers. Its success allowed the Association in 1887 to offer its employees a life insurance payable upon retirement.