Yeah, I second that. I try to believe in as little confirmation as
possible. Extended stacks of paper don't verify anything. For the EMC
stuff I think that you really want to deal with labs that have NIST
approval through NVLAP or A2LA. Among other things if you don't need an
FCC ID you can ship your product as soon as you have the report rather
than wait for the 6 weeks of FCC time. These labs are also the only ones
that are going to be covered in the MRA's with Europe etc
In order to complete this task they are suppose to have a
quality system in place (pretty much defined by ISO guide 25) that does
most of the work for you. The contents of that guide pretty much
describe processes which will insure proper test equipment, test
procedures, tracking, calibration et al. I would also ask for copies of
the bi-annual audits or corrective action items generated from the
audits. Hopefully, the corrective action items is small or non-existent.
So if they have a valid certificate I can be assured that they
have all the other reams of paper on file, that it addresses most of the
quality issues I would have, and that the lab is audited both internally
and externally. Therefore I don't need to find a corner of my office to
put all of this data - which will never get looked at anyway! I prefer
to let the auditing agency do all of this work and paper retention for
me.
Not all testing is currently certified by NIST et cetera. I
don't believe that you can be certified by anybody for ESD yet. But if
the lab is certified to do the EMI it would be very reasonable to assume
that the procedures that qualified them for EMI would be followed during
any other testing they claim to be qualified to perform.
If you wish to use labs that have no outside certification I
would develop a checklist of things you want to have controlled and I
would probably take them right out of the ISO guide 25 document - it is
intended afterall to be a quality guide for test laboratories.
Regardless of the method you use I would strongly recommend that
you actually visit each of the labs and talk with the people doing the
work. Paper is one thing the people that do the tests certainly are
another. I once had an emissions that was periodic extended above the
noise floor significantly, it was compliant but hard to miss. The
certified lab technician was going to ignore the signal (it should have
been part of the suspects at a very minimum) and when I asked him about
it he said it was an ambient. He based that on the cyclic nature rather
than any list of known ambients or any other tests. I quickly dropped
them from my vendor list.
Gary McInturff
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert F. Martin ITS/QS-Box [SMTP:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 1998 11:41 AM
To: Randall Flinders; 'emc-pstc'
Subject: RE: Lab qualification
I am not sure what level of detail that you are looking
for, but you might try to look at EN45001/2, and the associated guide
for EMC labs that was published in the UK. Another avenue would be to
model your format after the NVLAP program. They have a Handbook 150
(general) and 150-x (for specific methods (FCC, MIL)) for laboratories
applying for accreditation, which may be useful.
Bob Martin
Sr. Technical Manager
Intertek Testing Services
(978)263-2662
fax(978)263-7086
[email protected]
The opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily
those of my employer.
-----Original Message-----
From: Randall Flinders
[SMTP:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, October 05, 1998 11:34 AM
To: 'emc-pstc'
Subject: Lab qualification
Hello group.
I am facing the task of writing a corporate
procedure for qualifying EMC Test Labs as vendors. The procedure will
approve each vendor on a test by test basis, and a spec by spec basis.
(For example - one lab may be approved for radiated emissions, but not
for EFT testing, while another lab may be approved for testing to FCC
Part 15, but not to AS/NZS 3548.)
Could anyone suggest any documents which I can
use I the preparation of this procedure? If anyone has faced this task
in the past, pointers would be appreciated as well. So far, the only
document I have found to use as a guide is ISO Guide 25-B. Any other
suggestions would be appreciated.
Regards,
Randy Flinders
EMC Engineer
Emulex Network Systems
(714) 513-8012
[email protected]
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