There has been a spate of comments on this channel lately about the problems encountered when a product is an integration of several other products.
Doug Probstfeld of INTEL in Hillsboro, OR, has produced a white paper on the topic and makes some recommendations on how to deal with it. Not everybody may agree with Doug's approach, but I think it is a good start. (I don't like the use of the word "modules" in Doug's paper, as it confuses the EU Conformity Assessment modules, with components used in an integrated product, in the reader's minds.) In the paper he goes into each of the problem areas in great detail and attaches a copy of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking by the FCC to deal with the EMC aspects in the USA, under Part 15 of the FCC Rules and Regs. The FCC also has put in place a mechanism to deal with the telecom aspects of integrated packages, under Part 68 of the FCC Rules and Regs. Greg Slingerland of MITEL was instrumental in getting that one off the ground. UL has a special Task Force looking at the Electrical Safety aspects of the "plug and play" scenario. (Believe that INTEL and MITEL are on that Task Force). The telecom industry has always lived with this problem, as it always was composed of bits and pieces from different manufacturers, assembled in the field. There never was a complete PBX in one place, to be certified. We're now doing that with computer systems with servers from one manufacturer and controllers from another manufacturer to printers and terminals of yet other manufacturers, on a large scale. On the small scale, we're buying keyboards, mouses, monitors, motherboards, printers, power supplies and all manner of cards to go into the tower of our choice, to make our PC system. When we upgrade to a faster modem, a larger monitor screen a more powerful this and a faster that, we don't bring this thing back to the manufacturer. The smart ones will take it to a reputable integrator, the poor ones will take screwdriver in hand and do it themselves. That is the reality we live in. We should try and avoid different solutions to this challenge and opportunity, in every principality on mother Earth, and work on some global solutions. Regards, Vic Doug Probsfeld and Greg Slingerland can be reached at the eMail addresses above.
