Category: Uncategorized

Are You Ready? WEEE Directive Full Implementation Starts 15-Aug-18

Many man­u­fac­tur­ers sell­ing indus­tri­al prod­ucts into the EU mar­ket have come to under­stand at least one of the envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion Direc­tives, RoHS — the “restric­tion of the use of cer­tain haz­ardous sub­stances.” In this post, I’m going to be look­ing at anoth­er envi­ron­men­tal direc­tive: WEEE — the “Waste Elec­tri­cal and Elec­tron­ic Equip­ment” Direc­tive (2012/19/EU). Con­tin­ue read­ing “Are You Ready? WEEE Direc­tive Full Imple­men­ta­tion Starts 15-Aug-18″

CE, Brexit, and Authorised Representatives

CE, Brexit and Authorised Representatives

We’re just pass­ing the T-1 year mark on the UK’s jour­ney towards leav­ing the EU. Some of my read­ers are “Leavers”, while oth­ers are “Remain­ers”, but for every­one liv­ing in the UK or doing busi­ness with the UK, there are many ques­tions that remain unclear. To be fair, some of the lack of clar­i­ty is due to the nego­ti­a­tion process that Prime Min­is­ter May’s gov­ern­ment is engaged in, and some of it is the result of the com­plex­i­ty in the EU-UK rela­tion­ship. I hope to add some clar­i­ty to this sit­u­a­tion, at least as far as the impact on third-coun­try man­u­fac­tur­ers and CE Mark­ing is con­cerned.

What is an Authorised Representative?

Whether or not a man­u­fac­tur­er is based in the EU, they may use an Autho­rised Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to car­ry out cer­tain tasks, such as [1, 3.2]:

  • keep­ing the EU dec­la­ra­tion of con­for­mi­ty and the tech­ni­cal doc­u­men­ta­tion at the dis­pos­al of nation­al sur­veil­lance author­i­ties and coop­er­ate with them at their request,
  • pro­vid­ing that Nation­al Author­i­ties with all the infor­ma­tion and doc­u­men­ta­tion nec­es­sary to demon­strate the con­for­mi­ty of a prod­uct,
  • tak­ing actions to elim­i­nate the risks posed by prod­ucts cov­ered by their man­date,
  • affix the CE mark­ing and noti­fied body’s num­ber to the prod­uct,
  • draw up and sign the EU dec­la­ra­tion of con­for­mi­ty.

Man­u­fac­tur­ers locat­ed out­side the EU may be oblig­ed to have an Autho­rised Rep­re­sen­ta­tive by the Direc­tives applic­a­ble to their prod­ucts. Com­mer­cial rep­re­sen­ta­tives such as autho­rised dis­trib­u­tors or agents, should not be con­fused with the “autho­rised rep­re­sen­ta­tive” in the mean­ing of Union har­mon­i­sa­tion leg­is­la­tion.

Hav­ing an Autho­rised Rep­re­sen­ta­tive entails spe­cif­ic con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions. The EU Blue Guide [1] can help you to under­stand those oblig­a­tions and the pro­vi­sions that are rel­e­vant to the agree­ment. Since I am not a lawyer, I can’t pro­vide you with spe­cif­ic legal advice on this top­ic but an EU con­tracts lawyer can help you with the nec­es­sary arrange­ments. Many of the orga­ni­za­tions that have been pro­vid­ing these ser­vices for many years have ready-made con­tracts that ful­fil the require­ments and can get you set-up quick­ly.

How will Brexit affect your CE Mark?

Since the UK joined the Euro­pean Eco­nom­ic Com­mu­ni­ty (EEC) on 1-Jan-1973 [2], [3], [4], the rela­tion­ship has become a com­plex one, and dis­en­tan­gling this rela­tion­ship is going to take some time.

On the sur­face, third-coun­try man­u­fac­tur­ers are not required to have an EU-based Autho­rised Rep­re­sen­ta­tive [1], how­ev­er, some CE Mark­ing Direc­tives include explic­it require­ments regard­ing Autho­rised Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, while oth­ers like the Machin­ery Direc­tive, have implic­it require­ments that result in third coun­try man­u­fac­tur­ers need to have an Autho­rised Rep­re­sen­ta­tive based in the EU.

If you have a con­tract with an Autho­rised Rep­re­sen­ta­tive cur­rent­ly based in the UK, your CE Mark will no longer be valid on 1-Apr-2019 unless you make oth­er arrange­ments [5].

How will Brexit affect my Authorised Representative?

Since the UK and North­ern Ire­land will be leav­ing the EU at the end of March, 2019, any orga­ni­za­tion that offers Autho­rised Rep­re­sen­ta­tive ser­vices will no longer be able to meet the require­ment for being based in the EU. Where an indi­vid­ual is act­ing as an Autho­rised Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, they have the option to move from the UK to any oth­er EU Mem­ber State before the UK offi­cial­ly exits the union. Where an orga­ni­za­tion is pro­vid­ing an Autho­rised Rep­re­sen­ta­tive ser­vice, they have the option to move their cor­po­rate head­quar­ters to any oth­er EU Mem­ber mem­ber state. Once they can show that they are based in an EU coun­try, then they can legit­i­mate­ly offer Autho­rised Rep­re­sen­ta­tive ser­vices again.

Need help with CE Mark­ing? I can help! Con­tact me at +1 (519) 650‑4753 or by email.

References

[1]     Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, “Com­mis­sion Notice — The ‘Blue Guide’ on the imple­men­ta­tion of EU prod­ucts rules 2016″, Pub­li­ca­tions Office of the Euro­pean Union, Lux­em­bourg, 2018.

[2]     “When did Britain decide to join the Euro­pean Union? – UK in a chang­ing Europe”, Ukandeu.ac.uk, 2018. [Online]. Avail­able: http://ukandeu.ac.uk/fact-figures/when-did-britain-decide-to-join-the-european-union/. [Accessed: 30- Mar- 2018].

[3]     “BBC News — A time­line of the EU”, News.bbc.co.uk, 2018. [Online]. Avail­able: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3583801.stm. [Accessed: 30- Mar- 2018].

[4]     Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, “Com­mis­sion Notice — The ‘Blue Guide’ on the imple­men­ta­tion of EU prod­ucts rules 2016″, Pub­li­ca­tions Office of the Euro­pean Union, Lux­em­bourg, 2016.

[5]     DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR INTERNAL MARKET, INDUSTRY, ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SMEs, “NOTICE TO STAKEHOLDERS—WITHDRAWAL OF THE UNITED KINGDOM AND EU RULES IN THE FIELD OF INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS”, Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, Brus­sels, 2018.

New Directions in Plastics Machinery

Canada’s Participation in ISO TC 270

SCC Standards Council of Canada LogoIn Feb­ru­ary of 2016, Cana­da formed the SCC Mir­ror Com­mit­tee (SMC) to ISO TC 270, Rub­ber and Plas­tics Machin­ery. This inter­na­tion­al tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee is cur­rent­ly devel­op­ing ISO 20430, the first inter­na­tion­al plas­tic injec­tion mould­ing machine stan­dard. Until the pub­li­ca­tion of ISO 20430, two stan­dards have been fight­ing for dom­i­nance: EN 201, Plas­tics and rub­ber machines — Injec­tion mould­ing machines — Safe­ty require­ments, and ANSI B151.1, Amer­i­can Nation­al Stan­dard for Plas­tics Machin­ery — Hor­i­zon­tal Injec­tion Mould­ing Machines — Safe­ty Require­ments for man­u­fac­ture, Care and Use.

Cana­da has a strong plas­tic and rub­ber indus­try, with key equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers like Athena Automa­tion, Husky Injec­tion Mold­ing Sys­tems, Mold Mas­ters and GN Plas­tics among oth­ers pro­duc­ing world class machin­ery for the indus­try. The indus­try is rep­re­sent­ed nation­al­ly by the Cana­di­an Plas­tics Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion. Despite this, Cana­da has nev­er had its own stan­dard for this type of machin­ery.

Involve­ment in ISO TC 270 allows Canada’s plas­tics indus­try to have a voice in devel­op­ing the inter­na­tion­al stan­dards for the machin­ery they design and build, and which ever more com­mon­ly, they buy and use.

The com­mit­tee needs your help to know which way Cana­di­an indus­try wants us to focus our efforts as the work on ISO 20430 wraps up in com­ing months. We have a short sur­vey, just three ques­tions long, where you can rank five pos­si­ble top­ics we can focus on. We will be sub­mit­ting our com­mit­tee vote in ear­ly August on the top­ic, so you have a month or so to answer the ques­tion­naire. Let us know your pref­er­ences.

Why now?

ISO LogoUntil the pub­li­ca­tion of ISO 20430, two stan­dards have been fight­ing for dom­i­nance: EN 201 in Europe, and ANSI B151.1 in North Amer­i­ca. Until the rel­a­tive­ly recent for­ma­tion of ISO TC 270 in 2012, there were NO inter­na­tion­al stan­dards for this type of machin­ery. While there have been some efforts to har­monise the Euro­pean and ANSI stan­dards, there are still some sig­nif­i­cant gaps between these stan­dards. In addi­tion, ANSI’s B151 com­mit­tee has a num­ber of addi­tion­al stan­dards for aux­il­iary equip­ment for items like robots designed to unload molds, that are not direct­ly addressed in EN stan­dards.

Cana­da was giv­en a chance to par­tic­i­pate through our ongo­ing friend­ship with ANSI and the USA, so between 2012 and 2015, Cana­di­an del­e­gates attend­ed ISO TC 270 work­ing group meet­ings infor­mal­ly, and put Canada’s per­spec­tive for­ward through the US ANSI TAG com­mit­tee, but in 2016 it became clear that we need­ed to form our own com­mit­tee. If you are involved in the indus­try and you are a mem­ber of one of these gen­er­al groups and would like to get involved with stan­dards devel­op­ment, please go to our recruit­ing page and join us!

Committee Membership Matrix

Matrix Cat­e­go­ry Min Max Cur­rent
Total  15  25  6
Pro­duc­er Inter­est (PI) 3 5 3
User Inter­est, Man­age­ment (UM) 3 5 1
User Inter­est, Labour (UL) 3 5 0
Reg­u­la­to­ry Author­i­ty (RA) 3 5 1
Gen­er­al Inter­est (GI) 3 5 1

As you can see from the table, we need mem­bers in every group except the pro­duc­ers to meet our intend­ed bal­ance.

Definitions of the Categories

Pro­duc­er Inter­est (PI) — Machine builders, Aux­il­iary Equip­ment Man­u­fac­tur­ers, Con­sul­tants, and Engi­neer­ing Com­pa­nies pro­vid­ing for-prof­it ser­vices relat­ed to plas­tics and rub­ber machin­ery.

User Inter­est, Labour (UL) — Cana­di­an labour unions, labour orga­ni­za­tions, and indi­vid­ual work­ers locat­ed at Cana­di­an work­places.

User Inter­est, Man­age­ment (UM) — Trade asso­ci­a­tions, com­pa­nies, con­trac­tors, and orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ing com­pa­nies engaged in work per­formed in Cana­da.

Reg­u­la­to­ry Author­i­ties (RA) — OHS provin­cial and fed­er­al reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies (labour and elec­tri­cal).

Gen­er­al Inter­est (GI) — Safe­ty asso­ci­a­tions, research orga­ni­za­tions, insti­tu­tions, and non-com­mer­cial con­sul­tants who have exper­tise in the sub­ject area.

We need your help!

CAC ISO TC 270 needs your help!

Can you vol­un­teer some time? Sign up!

Can you help direct us? Answer our ques­tion­naire!

Need more infor­ma­tion? Con­tact Doug Nix!