Rich, Dell Computers, as well as a few other major players, take a proactive approach to compliance and actually have a VP position for compliance. With a little investigation into the benefits of having a first rate compliance department with the ability to design for compliance, test to relevant standards, compile reports, participate on standards committees, and deal directly with world wide agencies I would think that most companies that have global markets would see both the short term and long term benefits to the bottom line. I would tend to include PC's into the ordinary products pile, wouldn't you?
Companies that choose to take the adversarial approach to compliance by cutting corners or only doing the minimum to comply, save dollars in the short term, but pay later in lost customers, or worse, lawsuits. One of our clients, had a management team that took this denial/avoidance approach to NEBS. When the Telecom downturn came, they were left in a position where there was lots less demand and what demand there was, was for NEBS compliant products. Most of the management team that made those decisions have either left the company in recent right-sizing exercises, or are working in lesser positions. It seems that hindsight is always able to find a goat. When I explain the benefits of compliance to management teams, I try to focus on the bottom line benefits of having a product that is marketable everywhere. The costs for compliance, when compared to the total development cost for a new product tend to be in the noise. If these costs are amortized over reasonable quantities, then the unit cost for compliance tends to be a bargain. Its not hard to dig up a few good case studies in Product Liability to drive home the point. Best regards, Daniel E. Teninty, P.E. Managing Partner DTEC Associates LLC Streamlining The Compliance Process Advancing New Products To Market http://www.dtec-associates.com (509) 443-0215 (509) 443-0181 fax -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Rich Nute Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 12:36 PM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: Quality Assurance and Product Approvals Hi Alan: > Two questions, does the group see a time when we have a VP Compliance on > level terms with VP Finance, VP Marketing etc, or is this already > happening in the US. No. And not likely to happen in companies with ordinary products. As a general rule, "compliance" is seen as a necessary evil. It is a cost without an associated revenue (or customer-recognized need or benefit). Few companies want to give VP status (and an empire) to a non-revenue- generating function. Many companies measure the product incremental cost for "compliance." The objective is to find methods and means for minimizing these product costs. Furthermore, few companies recognize the work of "compliance" folks as prevention of future unanticipated costs such as failure of sales due to non-compliance, product liability, or even product recalls. The reason the work is not recognized is the difficulty of measuring the future cost of non-compliance, especially if the company has never had such an incident. > Second Question. Does the group think a formal qualification in > Compliance Management & CE Marking would be a good idea. While we may think this is a good idea, most professional managers in the field of compliance consider the job as one interim step in their career. If "compliance" is a non- revenue-generating activity, then the step to personal growth is to measure the cost of compliance for the duration of one's leadership, and add this to one's CV. Then, move on. Candidates for compliance management might find courses useful. However, the value of such qualifications is not for the long term. Another problem is that upper management doesn't want to be told that they are restricted by compliance rules insofar as setting objectives for the products and the company. They certainly don't want to feel that the only management folks qualified for managing a compliance function are those that are trained and qualified in compliance management. Formal qualification in compliance management may be seen by upper management as a power play where the compliance manager uses his knowledge to gain some degree of control over other managers. If "formal qualification" in compliance management is principally that of methodology for measuring and reducing cost of compliance, then I would think this would be a very good idea. Best regards, Rich ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. 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