Hi Chris, you have opened a number of important issues and seem to have illustrated the chasm that existed between what safety engineers do and what people 'think' safety engineers do.
Please forgive me answering it in the following manner.... -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Chris Maxwell Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 9:45 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: CE marking/testing of military equipment Again, I think common sense should rule on this one. I'm no military expert; but I did work in military communications for four years (yawn). I have seen a little bit of how DoD standards work. I spent 20 years in R&D - 10 was in Defense using Mil Std's and Def Std's . We would use IEC std's where they existed and wholly applicable and we extracted sections as appropriate. Say you are making a missle to launch from a ship. Go ahead, look through all of the civilian directives and standards that apply to CE marking. NO - I would EXPECT a safety engineer to know what was appropriate to which elements of the system - after drawing up a risk assessment matrix. What are the chances that you will find a standard for ship-based missles?? Has the IEC ever convened a technical commitee or working group to develop a safety standard for ship-based missles? NO - NONE - BUT EN60950 and others provide good incite into Electrical Safety, Accessibility , Thermal issues, INTERLOCKS, etc and they provide a standard test methodology. All are required for a quality system and design validation plan. How about your average NRTL...Go ahead, give them a call. Your end of the conversation would go something like: "Hi, TUV? I've got this 20 foot long missle that carries two tons of explosives. It also has about six tons of solid rocket fuel, and a pointy nose ...... No, I'm not threatening you because of my last invoice. I want a price quote for a safety test"...... Do you think that you would get a quote? (I don't have a problem with TUV...I just used their acronym because it is recognizable.) I agree - I would not expect them to be able to 'slice' and 'dice' the product and standards because: a- it is not within their regular services b- it is likely to be in breach of their quality system c- it would include more caveats than substance. Most military equipment is, by nature, unique and one of a kind. You just can't expect an engineer to safety test a toaster today and a ship-based missle tomorrow. I disagree - I would expect any good safety engineer to make a valuable contribution within a few hours of seeing the product. EXAMPLES......... I remember a (UK) incident of a sailor being vaporized by a missile efflux - WARNINGS - and TRAINING are common issues and within the scope of all product safety engineers. Another issue - S.S. Forrester (sp?) 'Illuminated' an aircraft with its radar - the aircraft fired a missile down the flight deck and mayhem ensured with a tragic loss of life. Forget the EMC aspects - any Safety Engineer being aware of the EMC risk would have insisted on Weight-Off-Wheel-Interlocks to arm the weapons. That is not 'rocket science'. Safety is not a mystery - it is common sense. B - u - t it requires 'looking' with a different pair of eyes. THAT is the secret and is what makes the difference between a good safety engineer and an engineering doing a safety review because he was told to! GOLDEN-RULE: Reviewing and testing to 'PASS' a safety test will usually result in a non-compliant product. If you want the resultant product to be compliance - and 'safe' then Review and Test to 'MAKE' the product "FAIL" the safety test. If you cannot fail the equipment: chances are it will be compliant. Please review some of the free downloadables on www.test4safety.com (eLearning) these explain in detail. If there is no CE marking directive or standard that deals with your piece of equipment on a technical basis; then how could you expect a CE mark on your equipment to show any level of consumer protection? I did not suggest CE Marking the product If the equipment is specialized (especially military); then you need to deal with safety from the ground up. I usually start top down and then work bottom up. Two passes are essential. You are probably better off dealing with the basics of safety starting with risk based analysis. But that is how the safety engineer will start. - We do not just dive into standards "because they are there": at least, to good ones don't :^ } .......... SNIP Best regards Gregg
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