NRTL's are like doctors. Just because someone has a medical degree does not mean they are good doctors. Same with NRTL's in my experience. Just because they are accredited does not mean they are good test labs. There are ones that do excellent jobs and others not so much.
When I was at TUV we went through the OSHA accreditation process and became an NRTL, for a small scope of standards at the time, and there is only so much they can check in a two day accreditation audit. They are also not experts in the standards they are accrediting a lab for. In our audit they checked for laboratory quality procedures, made sure we had the equipment to do the tests, and had us run a few tests to make sure we could do them but the auditors did not know the details of the standards they were auditing. Now maybe this has changed, as my experience is from 20+ years ago, but that is how it was back then. Unfortunately NRTL's can impose additional requirements they feel are justified and I doubt OSHA hears about these issues and I am not sure they could or would intervene in any case as IMHO the NRTL personnel generally know more about the requirements then OSHA does. Personally I found the CB Scheme audits to be much more thorough as back 20+ years ago when I participated in one the auditors were Engineers who were expert in the safety standards and did test us on our standard expertise. But even for the CB scheme audits are not all encompassing as I have found that NCB/CBTL expertise varies greatly depending on which lab you choose. -----Original Message----- From: John Woodgate [mailto:j...@jmwa.demon.co.uk] Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2014 2:25 AM To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: Re: [PSES] Battery certification issue In message <49b036a46b7543609a62f14804058...@bn1pr08mb059.namprd08.prod.outlook.com> , dated Wed, 3 Sep 2014, "Nyffenegger, Dave" <dave.nyffeneg...@bhemail.com> writes: >But the NRTLs are accredited and regularly reviewed/inspected by their >accreditation bodies in order to stay on OSHAs NRTL list as I am >repeatedly reminded by the NRTLs otherwise their mark becomes worthless. So the accreditation bodies tolerate arbitrary and unreasoning decisions by the NRTLs? Or do they just never get to hear about them? -- OOO - Own Opinions Only. With best wishes. See www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Quid faciamus nisi sit? John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK - ---------------------------------------------------------------- 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://www.ieee-pses.org/list.html (including how to unsubscribe) 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> - ---------------------------------------------------------------- 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://www.ieee-pses.org/list.html (including how to unsubscribe) 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>
