John gives good advice. Send a couple of your EEs to a seminar or two. You really cannot afford not to.
As far as 3rd party EMC test labs, some of the larger labs do provide engineering services, but there is a thin line of ethics they must be careful not to cross. If you don't have or cannot have expertise in-house your best bet is to hire an independent contractor who can help you design and produce a compliant product. It is best if your 3rd party test lab's only responsibility is to test and provide results. They cannot be responsible for the compliance of your product in any way. But, they should be open to include any information on their test reports that you need or want as long as they can verify the information you give them is correct. The only way to know for sure your production is compliant is to test which can be expensive. But knowledgeable in-house EMC expertise can pay for itself very quickly if unnecessary testing can be avoided. Look at the Emissions test standards such as CISPR 11 or 22 under the Assessment of Conformity of Equipment section. It talks about the 80/80 rule and says something like, "measurements shall be performed on a sample of not less than five and not more than 12 pieces....". The EMC Directive in Europe says, "The manufacturer must take all measures necessary to ensure that the products are manufactured in accordance with the technical documentation referred to in point 3 and with the provisions of this Directive that apply to them." I am a strong advocate of testing, testing, testing. We pretest everything we can; power supplies, modules, pc cards, controllers, hard drives, etc.. We test engineering prototypes, pre-production, and first production products. And we have an annual audit program to insure our production remains compliance. And of course we test any major change that we feel can affect compliance; a decision that can only be made from our many years of experience and familiarity with our products. Something you cannot get from a 3rd party lab or consultant. The Other Brian -----Original Message----- From: emc-p...@ieee.org [mailto:emc-p...@ieee.org] On Behalf Of John Woodgate Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 10:13 AM To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: Re: [PSES] Critical component in EMC report In message <cd67f0b2.1981a%scott...@gmail.com>, dated Thu, 14 Mar 2013, Scott Xe <scott...@gmail.com> writes: >For medium and small companies, they have no test facilities and the >engineers who may not have got the professional training in EMC >requirements BAD!!!! Train them. It saves money, time and heartache. >rely on the 3rd party lab for spotting out the failures and the advice >for problem fixing. Dealing with such companies would be at risk as >the test report may not help them too much. Indeed: corporate confidence is bound to be damaged when no-one knows if the latest product will pass or be an EMC or safety basket-case. -- OOO - Own Opinions Only. See www.jmwa.demon.co.uk SHOCK HORROR! Dinosaur-like DNA found in chicken and turkey meals John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. 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Thank you. - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.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...@radiusnorth.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald: <dhe...@gmail.com>
