I agree with your conclusion. Ralph McDiarmid, AScT Compliance Engineering Group Xantrex Technology Inc.
From: emc-p...@ieee.org [mailto:emc-p...@ieee.org] On Behalf Of Powell, Doug Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 11:31 AM To: emc-p...@ieee.org Subject: Regulatory Compliance stifles innovation? All, I've heard it said that Regulatory Compliance stifles innovation and sometimes even makes it impossible to do the things we want. The constraints that are imposed for Safety and EMC seem prevent our highly talented engineering/design community from doing what they need to achieve leading-edge high-technology designs. R&D is how companies innovate. As an idea or a need is perceived the Research piece begins: conceptualization, feasibility studies, and so on. Once a new concept accepted, the Design piece of the equation begins. Sometimes, in these days of concurrent engineering, it is difficult to clearly distinguish the R and D pieces, nevertheless both exist. A critical part of Design process is to identify all the parameters which tend limit the practical application of any concept. We are familiar with these limits in the form of thermal performance, insulation value, mechanical strength, timing, and others. Constantly there is tendency a push these limits and sometimes a search for new materials is launched. But there are always absolute limits to any material chosen and we must live within these constraints. I submit that like the other physical limits we have, Safety and EMC are simply additional limitations that must be observed at the beginning of the design and not the end. My conclusion is that the idea that regulatory compliance stifles innovation is false. I would like to submit that for a savvy company, Regulatory Compliance actually demands a still more innovative scientist/engineer and therefore "Regulatory Compliance drives innovation to higher levels!" Any thoughts? Regards, -doug Douglas E. Powell Staff Engineer Corporate Compliance Department Advanced Energy Industries, Inc. Fort Collins, Colorado USA 80525 - 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 ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________