Peter, You must provide operation and safety related instructions in the language(s) of the country of the end user. Maintainance manuals can be in a different language if there is an agreement between the manufacturer and the people who will be performing the maintenance (e.g. the manufacturer's local agent performs maintenance), but if you are shipping a product to unknown end users (i.e. it is going through some sort of distribution or retail chain) then you will almost certainly need to provide both operation and maintenance manuals in the local languages of the countries in which the product is sold.
The section of the Machinery Directive (98/37/EC) which deals with this is clause 1.7.4 (b) which states: "The instructions must be drawn up in one of the Community languages by the manufacturer or his authorised representative established in the Community. On being put into service, all machinery must be accompanied by a translation of the instructions in the language or languages of the country in which the machinery is to be used any by the instructions in the original language. This translation must be done either by the manufacturer or his authorised representative established in the Community or by the person introducing the machinery into the language area in question. By way of derogation from this requirement, the maintenance instructions for use by specialised personnel employed by the manufacturer or his authorised representative established in the Community may be drawn up in only one of the Community languages understood by that personnel." In practice, it will pay dividends for you to have a good understanding of the language requirements of the markets in which you sell, and local intelligence is essential. Some countries are a lot more relaxed about the issue that others - as has already been pointed out you are unlikely to ever have to produce instructions in Welsh or Gaelic, but (for instance) except in some special circumstances, I would not recommend shipping product to France or Germany without providing information in French or German. Please ask for further clarification if this is insufficient! The answer to this sort of question often turns out to be very application specific, so if you want a detailed answer you will need to give some more information about the exact circumstances in which the question has arisen. Regards Nick. At 4:05 pm +0200 3/4/06, Peter Weichel wrote: >Hi all, > >I have a quick question regarding requirements from Machinery Directive >98/37/EC. > >1) >As i read the MD, the user manual (insturction) must always be on the >local language in the country in which the machine is being used. >According to Appendix I, section 1.7.4 paragraph (b) >Is this not the correct interpretation or what ? > >2) >In same paragraph, its mentioned that maintainance manuals, can be in >one of the EU languages. >Does this ONLY apply if the service personell are employed by the >producer of the machine or his distributor ? > >Best regards >PBI-Dansensor > >Peter Weichel >Test and Approval Engineer > >PBI-Dansensor A/S >Roennedevej 18 >DK-4100 Ringsted >Tel.: (+45) 57 66 00 88 >Fax: (+45) 57 66 00 99 >e-mail: p...@pbi-dansensor.com >Website: www.pbi-dansensor.com > > - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to emc-p...@ieee.org Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas emcp...@ptcnh.net Mike Cantwell mcantw...@ieee.org For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: j.bac...@ieee.org David Heald: emc-p...@daveheald.com All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
