John - Thank you for taking this up with your acquaintance.
FWIW, I've been involved in product safety for more than 18 years, the last 10 of which have had increasingly global scope. Though perhaps to a lifer, I'm a wee babe just out of my nappies. ;) The crux of your acquaintance's reply is that: 1) if the manufacturer resides in the EU, the docopocoss applies to the last date a product may be shipped from the factory; 2) if the manufacturer does not reside in the EU, the docopocoss is the date shipped from the importer's (or authorized representative's) facility. So, stock may not be held on shelves at any location prior to the *external* distribution chain, regardless of date of manufacture, shipped after the docopocoss and be considered in compliance with applicable EU Directives, if a superceded standard was used as a basis for conformity. There may be some stickiness with respect to who is considered a distributor, if, for instance Inchcape, Thomson or some other large distributor is also the importer, but this can no doubt be handled by dummy corporations at an adjacent store front, tent, awning or back alley address (all appropriate permits and licenses in place, of course) serving as the importer. Similar "iffyness" exists if the importer/distributor is the owner of the manufacturing plant located outside the EU or if the importer/distributor is owned by the same parent company as the manufacturer. I have a query in with the EC, which (I was informed this morning) won't be answered until next week, due to a trade mission to Asia. I can't help but snicker that the EC were determined to remove the legislative purview from CENELEC (as previously posted) in assigning the docopocoss (in their standard's forwards as a last date of manufacture), that a reference would be given back to a CENELEC Guide to explain the EC's intent. O. Henry would be pleased. It would be a good thing (tm) if Subclause 4.5 of the Guide to the Implementation of Directives Based on New Approach and Global Approach (Blue Guide) made such a clear and unambiguous statement. Perhaps you can make this recommendation to your acquaintance. Regards, Peter L. Tarver, PE Product Safety Manager Sanmina-SCI Homologation Services San Jose, CA [email protected] ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: [email protected] Dave Heald: [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://ieeepstc.mindcruiser.com/ Click on "browse" and then "emc-pstc mailing list"
