Dear Group
The Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE, London, UK) have recently
published a new professional guidance document on "EMC and Functional Safety",
a much neglected and misunderstood area which is becoming very important as
more and more safety-related functions are controlled by electronics or
software.
Their new Guide has a "Core", plus nine "Industry Annexes". You can download
them all for free, in Word or PDF format, from
http://www.iee.org.uk/PAB/EMC/core.htm. (Please note: this URL may be
case-sensitive.)
This new Guide makes the point that meeting EMC standards (e.g. under Europe's
EMC directive) may well be inadequate for safety-related applications, and that
these need a proper hazards and risk assessment using EMC and safety personnel
who are competent to perform this task.
(Engineers experienced only in safety or only in EMC will usually need more
training if they are to deal with emc-related functional safety.)
Everyone involved with EMC or safety should at least read the first few pages
of the Core, and copy its Executive Summary widely to their colleagues and
managers, so that even more people aren't put at risk by poor design or
inadequate testing.
If companies follow this new Guide it should help them show due diligence with
European CE marking safety directives, and should also help them to achieve a
'state of the art' defence under European Product Liability and General Product
Safety directives. (Many companies aren't aware of these latter two directives,
because they don't require CE marking or declarations of conformity, but their
possible penalties are very much higher than CE marking directives, and the
defence they require is much more difficult to achieve.)
Although this guide mentions European legislation on EMC and on Safety, it will
be of relevance anywhere in the world where functional safety is an issue for
electronic equipment or systems.
Keith Armstrong
Partner, Cherry Clough Consultants, www.cherryclough.com
Cherry Clough House, Rochdale Road, Denshaw, OL3 5UE, Great Britain
phone: +44 (0)1457 871 605, fax: +44 (0)1457 820 145
E-mail: keith.armstr...@cherryclough.com
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