Robert,
You mention that the product goes from the U.S. to you office in
Netherlands, but what about after that ? If it is then sold to
another company outside of the EU, then I don't think the CE Marking
is needed. If it is intended to end up in the EU, my opinion is that
no, it wouldn't need to have the CE Marking on it when it gets to your
office in the Netherlands. However, it would be required to be
applied prior to being sold to the end user. If the EMC Directive
applies to your product, Article 3 of the directive states that
"Member States shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that
apparatus as referred to in Article 2 may be placed on the market or
taken into service only if it complies with the requirements laid down
by this Directive..."
My interpretation of the above clause is that if your product is not
"placed on the market" or "taken into service" then the Member states
don't need to verify compliance with this Directive, i.e. they don't
need to check for the CE Marking regarding the EMC Directive. I'm not
familiar with some of the other directives, so I don't know if the
same rationale can be made with regards to those other directives. I
believe the same rationale can be made with respect to the Low Voltage
Directive.
Based on the above, I would determine when the product is "placed on
the market" or "taken into service", and then make sure the product
meets the applicable directives and the CE Marking is applied prior to
that time. A document titled "Guidelines on the .... Relating to EMC"
provides definitions of "placing a product on the market" and "putting
a product into service". One source for this document is the U.S.
Dept. of Commerce.
One last thing. You mentioned that your office in the Netherlands is
set up for "value added type production". Your company would also
need to evaluate compliance of the product in the various
configurations. If your office in the U.S. puts the CE Marking on the
product and then the product is reconfigured in Europe, the product
should be reviewed to determine that the applicable directives are
still met.
My opinion above is based only on my personal review of the directives
and other published materials. If there are opinions other than this
I would appreciate hearing them.
Kendall Wilcox
Fujitsu Computer Products of America
[email protected]
______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________
Subject: INTRA-COMPANY SHIPMENTS TO Europe / CE
Author: [email protected] at SMTP-MAIL
List-Post: [email protected]
Date: 5/14/96 8:13 AM
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Our headquarters, and the majority of our product shipments, are out of Ann
Arbor, MI. However, we own a facility in The Netherlands. This facility
consists primarily of a sales office, wharehouse, service depot, and a facility
for some value-added type production. In other words, we ship products out
of our headquarters here in the US, to this facility. My counterparts in our
European facility tell me that I do not need the CE Mark on the products for
intra-company shipments like this.
My questions is..............what does the
directives say about intra-company shipments..........? I am looking for as
much information on this subject as possible........if anyone has any insight,
please let me know!
Robert L. Terry
Compliance Engineer
Nematron Corporation
[email protected]
313 994 0591 Ext 235
313 994 8408 Fax
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