I would like to respond to George's comment about equipment safety after manufacture and shipping. While I agree that his list contains actions the equipment will face from the customer and nature, the manufacturer is not relieved of their responsibility to inform the user, maintainer and handlers of consequences of making unauthorized repairs, substituting inferior components in the repair process, misuse of the equipment or mishandling of the equipment. I believe it has do with due diligence to warn. This is not to say the equipment, operating and maintenance instructions, the packaging should be completely covered with warnings, but actions taken to prevent injury and damage by the manufacturer are what becomes important in liability cases.
The comments are purely mine and do not respresent those of my company. Bill Jackson Harris Corp RF Communications Div ---------- From: George Alspaugh To: emc-pstc%ieee.org Subject: Replacement Labels List-Post: [email protected] Date: Friday, February 14, 1997 8:59AM Thanks Egon and Rich for your comments. As I thought about this issue more, it is far more complex than how to replace a damaged rating label, and not easily resolved. First, think of all the products that can be unsafe. These include foods, drugs, vehicles, furnaces, hair dryers, and yes, even ITE. Let's assume that every one is safe going out the factory door, and perhaps marked accordingly. >From this point on, there are many factors that can make the product less safe than when it was manufactured. A few of these are: Handling Application Installation Contaminants Wear Misuse Repairs Time (aging) Therefore, safety marks can only mean one thing, i.e. the product met stated safety requirements at the time of manufacture. Any agency or producer should be reluctant to claim anything more. NO one can ensure the on-going safety once the product is "out there". In other words, all safety labels mean little once the product is beyond the surveillance of the manufacturer and agencies. We have seen several examples of unsafe repairs done by unqualified people, often the end user. Given the realities discussed above, replacing a damaged power rating label seems moot. A replacement label means the same thing (only) as the original, i.e. that the unit was safe at the time of manufacture. George Alspaugh Lexmark International [As Yogi Berra once said, "You can observe a lot just by watching".]
