From the earliest days of the CMA, records show that the Association has involved itself in standardisation of belt conveyor system components used in the South African context.  The first sub-committee was set up in 1972 to study the need for Idler dimensional standards, scope of which was for conveyor idlers manufactured in South Africa, covering leading dimensions, conversions from inches to millimeters and allowable tolerances, quality of materials, and load carrying capacity.

A first draft of an Idler dimensional standard was drawn up by CMA members using their own manufacturing specifications, ISO and British Standards, and Eskom and Anglo American tendering specifications and standards.  The draft was registered with SABS in December 1973 as a private standard with the intention that it would later become a National Standard.  Minor technical changes were made to the CMA document by the technical committee in April 1975 and in July 1975 SABS agreed to set up a committee to start the process for publishing the National Standard.

Moving forward to October 1976, the CMA drafted an Idler Standards Brochure that members could send to end users outlining the provisions of the CMA Idler standard.

At the end of March 1977, SABS held a technical committee meeting to record changes to the technical document, but major hurdles still had to be overcome on SABS proposal to standardise individual idler rolls and some of the limitations of ISO should this be adopted instead.

In March 1978 the CMA Uniform Dimensions for Idlers was published.

During the period August 1978 to November 1979 a SABS document originally developed without the assistance of the CMA was reviewed and changed by our technical committee, until finally SABS had a document that could be sent to countries around the world for comment and voting prior to publication, a process that was expected to take six months.  Subsequently, in 1980 the National Standard which we know as SANS 1313-1 was published.

Over the years since, Parts 2 and 3 were added and improvements to the original document continued to be made with the close co-operation of SABS and the CMA.  The current version of SANS 1313 was published in 2012, but regrettably several errors appear to have crept in during the re-drafting process.  The CMA has identified the errors and requested that the Standards be amended by SABS.

Solely as a service to industry, and in the interests of safety and to limit potential manufacturing errors, a list of these potential errors is being made available to the industry in the interim period before the standards are amended.  Anyone interested, but especially users of SANS 1313 of 2012, may download the list from this website.  The list is made available subject to the intellectual property rights of SANS 1313:2012 remaining with the SABS and is used and applied solely at the discretion of the user.