Qualigaz is a control body whose main mission is to improve the safety and quality of domestic gas installations carried out inside homes. Both modern and older gas installations must hold a Certificate of Compliance (CC) as required by the French Ministerial Order of 2 August 1977. These certificates are official documents created and signed by the professional or individual who carried out the work, and must be validated by a control body recognized by the Ministry of Industry.
The Market Reference for Gas Installation Certifications
The Qualigaz association, accredited by COFRAC (the French Accreditation Committee), has been the authorized reference body for issuing and endorsing these certificates since 1990.
3M
installations supervised
+200k
compliance certificates endorsed per year
90
inspectors spread across France
When an installer completes work on a new installation or a renovation, they must purchase a certificate from Qualigaz, fill it in and sign it. Qualigaz receives the certificate and verifies the data entered in accordance with current procedures. Depending on each case and the installer’s qualifications, an on-site inspection is sometimes carried out. Once the certificate is found correct, a duly authorized Qualigaz representative endorses it by signing it.
Giant Strides Toward Digitalization
With the goal of simplifying professionals’ work as much as possible, Qualigaz, an innovation pioneer, implemented a web-based certificate management interface years ago: CCWeb. Thanks to it, installers can complete and submit their compliance certificate to Qualigaz online, without needing to send it by regular post — saving several days of work and the costs associated with postal shipping.
“That said, until 2013, in order to affix the reviewer’s necessary signatures, this digital certificate had to be printed, and once validated, we had to send it to the installer by regular post. We wanted to go a step further and eliminate this final postal shipment.”
— Marion Manyri, Technical and Operations Director at Qualigaz
To achieve this goal, the company decided to replace all acts requiring a handwritten signature with electronic signature processes. In late 2012, they began looking for an electronic signature service capable of integrating seamlessly into the CCWeb environment. After carefully analyzing all the options available on the market, they chose Namirial as their online signature solution.
“To complete this project successfully and choose the right partner, we left nothing to chance: we assessed the quality and integrity of the proposed solution, the company’s history, its client portfolio, professionalism in the business relationship, and so on.”
— Gilbert Breton, Director of Information Systems at Qualigaz
Full Digitalization of the Compliance Certificate
In just a few weeks, Qualigaz‘s IT team, led by Gilbert Breton, successfully completed a digitalization project covering the entire certificate validation process: the fully digital compliance certificate became a reality.
Once the project was complete, Namirial‘s electronic signature was seamlessly integrated into the CCWeb environment, enabling instant certificate validation:
- The installer logs into CCWeb as before and carries out the same data entry steps as always.
- Qualigaz issues a PDF certificate summarizing all the data.
- The installer clicks the “Sign” button added to the CCWeb interface, allowing them to electronically sign the document.
- If all goes well, a message confirms the signature was completed successfully, and the installer is redirected to their CCWeb interface.
- The reviewer can log into CCWeb at any time to see a list of certificates awaiting validation, handling reviews case by case.
- Once all the data is compliant, the reviewer clicks to sign, and if everything is correct, they are redirected to the interface where they can view the remaining certificates pending signature.
- The PDF certificate is automatically made available to the installer, who can download it from CCWeb the next time they log in.
By late 2013, Qualigaz once again demonstrated its capacity for innovation: all compliance certificates completed before 3 pm on business days and endorsed by Qualigaz are made available to installers that same day, from 5:30 pm onward, on the CCWeb platform, in PDF format. In addition, nearly all gas distributors, such as GrDF, accept digital compliance certificates for commissioning a new installation.
In this way, Qualigaz reinforces its leading position by committing to a “zero paper” policy, and continues to be the preferred partner for the gas sector.
Disclaimer: this success story was originally produced and published by Signaturit Group. Following the integration of Signaturit into the Namirial Group, it is now hosted on the Namirial website for archival and informational purposes. The results, figures, branding, and product references reflect the customer experience at the time of original publication and may no longer represent current offerings or outcomes.