Mail*Link(r) SMTP FWD>Penalty for Non-Compliance EMC Facts of life.
The movement from a variety of European Countries National EMC/EMI Standards to the harmonised requirements was driven by the increasing use of intentional radiators in the environment plus unintentional radiators such as PC's and the growing use of cardiac support devices. This is not an exhaustive list. A long lead time was provided before the directive 'engaged' which enabled many manufacturers to place their heads in the sand until the Directive dates began to graze their marketing window. To make it extra easy the directive permits choice of routes for compliance and the necesary labelling and documents to support products may all be produced in-house in any style provided the basic requirements are met. We are running mainly on 'generic' EMC Standards at present which are broadly parametered. Further along the learning curve will come the 'family' standards and then the 'product' standards - compliance with both will become mandatory as the Standard enters into force. If you are not up to speed now the catch-up education will be painful and expensive. I get support from my local Trading Standards department who retain a consultant EMC specialist who can respond in writing to queries on repair, equipment stocked before 31-12-95, return to non_EC location for upgrade etc. All penalties following discovery of non-compliance are determined in the UK by case law once the Trading Standards Dept. has decided to prosecute. I would imagine the main penalties would be limited career path for any technical professional caught in the loop plus EC Market losses if the case attracted wide publicity. J. Roberton All opinions my own. -------------------------------------- List-Post: emc-pstc@listserv.ieee.org Date: 22/2/97 5:54 am From: PHILLIP FORD CE-mark, EMC Directive comments. In the UK the situation has been quiet since 1/1/96 but I think things are changing. Enforcement in the UK is in the hands of the Trading Standards Officers, but is complaint-driven. The newspaper "Electronics Weekly" (19/2/97) carries a front page story about a possible prosecution resulting from the Cardiff Trading Standards testing of four PCs at the end of last year, three of which allegedly failed EMC tests. They also report that one EMC test house claims an increase in bookings from PC manufacturers following the recent threat of prosecution. Regards, PFORD at HVTVM GBXYR7PW at IBMMAIL Phillip Ford phil_f...@uk.xyratex.com ext 3255 tel:+44 (0)1705 443255 fax:+44 (0)1705 499315 Engineering Lab, 871/24-22 X Y R A T E X ------------------ RFC822 Header Follows ------------------ Received: by Mac2.net.com with ADMIN;22 Feb 1997 05:50:44 -0800 Received: from ruebert.ieee.org by unet.net.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id FAA05090; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 05:46:01 -0800 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by ruebert.ieee.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id GAA18286 for emc-pstc-list; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 06:33:12 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199702221133.gaa18...@ruebert.ieee.org> List-Post: emc-pstc@listserv.ieee.org Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 06:32:06 EST From: "PHILLIP FORD" <phil_f...@uk.xyratex.com> To: emc-p...@ieee.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Penalty for Non-Compliance Sender: owner-emc-p...@majordomo.ieee.org Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "PHILLIP FORD" <phil_f...@uk.xyratex.com> X-Resent-To: Multiple Recipients <emc-p...@majordomo.ieee.org> X-Listname: emc-pstc X-List-Description: Product Safety Tech. Committee, EMC Society X-Info: Help requests to emc-pstc-requ...@majordomo.ieee.org X-Info: [Un]Subscribe requests to majord...@majordomo.ieee.org X-Moderator-Address: emc-pstc-appro...@majordomo.ieee.org