Doug and friends
The thought that comes (and has for a very long time!) to mind then relates to the detailed wording of the contract between the company and the contractor – and more specifically the consultant because the contractor is actually on the company payroll, whereas the consultant is generally not. >From the company’s perspective, it might want to try to pin all legal (and >financial) responsibility for the completeness and correctness of resultant >documentation on the contract/consultant. OTOH, from the contractor’s/consultant’s perspective, the above would be the very last thing that he/she would want to happen because of the legal implications of “getting it wrong” as the possible financial /maybe criminal liabilities could be literally be “life-changing”. Unfortunately however, the contractor/consultant may be in the very difficult position of having to decide whether to sign the contract and take the risk – or decline to take the work, and thus lose the income stream. In my case, , I went in with my eyes “fairly open” but certainly didn’t realise the “difficulties” that I would be facing, particularly in the last contracting job, because the company hadn’t really understood the extent to which it’s systems didn’t “make the grade”. OTOH, I did make sure that I had pretty substantial liability insurance cover - and I kept paying for that for at least a year after I left (at which point, the company compliance systems were in a much better state of affairs than when I had arrived) !. Thus, to return somewhat to my initial comment about that para in the article, there are risks on both sides, and everyone involved really needs to understand them and the possible consequences if “things go wrong” – but unfortunately, that is rarely the case, especially when a company takes the gist of that para as being “all one has to do is….” John E Allen W. London, UK From: Douglas Nix <[email protected]> Sent: 18 October 2021 16:56 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PSES] Safety Compliance Testing: It's A Business, So Shop Around I could not agree more. As a consultant, the best we can do is address the obvious problems, the subtle ones that may exist with in an organization are unlikely to be revealed during most consulting engagements, no matter how good a consultant you are. Doug Nix [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> +1.519.729.5704 “The best way to predict your future is to create it” — Peter F. Drucker On 16-Oct-21, at 05:35, John E Allen <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Good morning all. I printed out the article, read it quite closely and can only agree with 95%+ of what the author wrote – the notable exception being the paragraph on the 1st page beginning “CE is all about …”!!!! Like many of you guys, whilst in “gainful employment” I did a LOT of “CE compliance” work for various companies, generally as an employee - but sometimes as a contractor/ consultant and, from my own experience, I can say that employing one of the latter to do the work is potentially a very “risky” approach! As most of us know (or should by now!), it is the company’s, not the contractor’s /consultant’s, legal responsibility to ensure that the CE compliance files are complete and correct and do demonstrate that the legal requirements have been met – and there’s the big risk in employing a contractors/consultant to do the legwork to create them. Unless that person has been working for the company for long enough to really know and understand how the company systems work – especially in the areas of design, development and materials control & manufacturing – then he/she won’t know the “whole story” behind the product & project. Therefore he/she is very likely to miss critical issues that could affect whether the final compliance documentation actually reflects the way in which the product has been designed & built and whether it actually meets the requirements of the “CE compliance” regulations & standards. Most contractors/consultants that are brought into a company for a specific time/cost constrained compliance project won’t know “all of that”, and therefore the company is at risk of signing off on faulty documentation and leaving themselves open to possible legal action in the future……. John E Allen W. London, UK From: Richard Nute <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Sent: 15 October 2021 19:34 To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [PSES] Safety Compliance Testing: It's A Business, So Shop Around <<...>> I found this article to be very interesting. It may be useful to you. Stay safe, and best regards, Rich - ---------------------------------------------------------------- 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 <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > 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) <http://www.ieee-pses.org/list.html> List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Mike Cantwell <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > David Heald <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > - ---------------------------------------------------------------- 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 <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > 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) <http://www.ieee-pses.org/list.html> List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Mike Cantwell <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > David Heald <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > - ---------------------------------------------------------------- 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 <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > 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) <http://www.ieee-pses.org/list.html> List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Mike Cantwell <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > David Heald <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > - ---------------------------------------------------------------- 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 <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]> Mike Cantwell <[email protected]> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <[email protected]> David Heald: <[email protected]>
