Dear Jim The EMC Journal in the UK have been publishing EMC horror stories under the heading "Banana Skins" every bi-monthly issue beginning with their February 1998 issue. Their editor Alan Hutley may be Emailed at [email protected], and their website is www.emc-journal.co.uk.
Compliance Engineering Magazine has been reporting EMC incidents for many years. They have often published excellent articles on EMC problems in medical devices. For article reprints contact their Publisher's Assistant Cathy Allain on (USA) 978 635 8581, for back issues contact Ehrin Barker on (USA) 978 635 8591. In Europe phone (+44) 1483 488 408 or fax (+44) 1483 488 447. One of the problems with EMC horror stories is that staff and consultants are bound by confidentiality not to talk about much of what they know, so the very real problems are not as widely known as they ought to be, resulting in poor engineering practices being perpetuated and considerable business risks being taken by manufacturers. Your original request concerned Regulatory Compliance, and it is true to say that in the UK and the rest of the EU some companies have already been badly burned by illegal CE marking under the EMC Directive. In the UK most of the enforcement actions take place without the involvement of the courts, so without publicity, and a casual observer might think that very little EMC enforcement is occurring. I know of UK companiest that have had all their products suspended from the EU market for periods of six months or more while they were all re-engineered, and happened merely on the instructions of an enforcement officer during his brief visit to investigate a complaint made by a competitor. In Germany many companies have been fined for non-compliance, but once again they don't appear in court and so the media can't report their names. Even though fines and/or suspension from the EU market for non-compliance with the EMC Directive is bad enough, worse still are the product liability issues under the Product Liability Directive 85/374/EEC. This Directive does not involve CE marking, and is very much like US "no-fault liability" laws in that unlimited damages may be awarded against a manufacturer on the balance of probabilities that his product caused damage, injury, death, financial loss, etc. Under this liability Directive, manufacturers are effectively considered guilty until they can show that their product could not have caused the damage, injury, loss, etc. Most companies settle out of court for large sums of money becuase they know their products and procedures won't stand a critical investigation, and/or because they don't want the bad publicity. In the UK at least lawyers can now work on a no win - no fee basis, and the Product Liability area is a very fertile one for this sort of action, especially worrying for the larger (wealthier) company. Most EMC consultants can talk for hours about problems they have seen and know to be going on that are clearly accidents waiting to happen and do not represent good practices or good professional or ethical conduct. But most companies appear to be driven by people for whom ethics take second place to financial figures. Such people often take huge risks with their own company's liability exposure, good name, and customers' finances and health because they don't want to (or don't know how to) weigh up the very real hazards and risks that lack of EMC has for their business and their customers. Sadly, it appears that is not until major incidents occur (usually involving loss of life, or huge liability claims) and get reported in the mass media that anyone changes the way they do things. We would hope that we were all wise enough these days to head off problems before they occur, but as far as EMC is concerned this does not yet appear to be the case. Remember that EMC is all about making things work in the way that the customer has a right to expect - without interfering with other things (emissions) and without suffering unduly from reliability problems (immunity) - and if you can show that you do meet these very basic and obvious sales requirements then you can also show that you meet the EMC Directive without further engineering work. I hope this helps! Best of luck! EurIng Keith Armstrong CEng MIEE MIEEE Partner, Cherry Clough Consultants phone: +44 01457 871 605 fax: +44 1457 820 145 Email: [email protected] Knighten, Jim wrote: > > To All: > > My management is drafting an "educational" briefing for higher > management on the degree of seriousness of regulatory compliance > (primarily aimed at EMC). > > I would appreciate your sharing with me any tales of woe, penalties, > incarceration, or any other horror stories related to companies who have > either inadvertently not complied with the regulations, or who have been > deliberately lax in doing so. Again, EMC is more my interest. > > Thank you, > > Jim > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > --------------------------- > Dr. Jim Knighten > NCR > 17095 Via del Campo > San Diego, CA 92127 > Telephone: 619-485-2537 > Fax: 619-485-3788 > e-mail: [email protected]
