John, The Hazard Based Standard is still in the early stages of development within the IEC, so there will be many changes before a document is available for public comment. Many of the individuals participating in the development work for well known manufacturers while others work for certain well-known test labs. - with a few independent consultants thrown in for good measure ;-)
Will the document be more or less easy to use than either IEC 60950-1 or IEC 60065? Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as we say - but then we're nowhere near perfecting the recipe yet. In terms of the original SELV/PELV debate, I do not see any likelihood of change any time soon (in fact, ever!). Regards, Richard Hughes Safety Answers Limited www.safetyanswers.ltd.uk In a message dated 08/12/2003 19:57:34 GMT Standard Time, [email protected] writes: Risk assessment and hazard-based approaches most certainly have a significant place in legal compliance - if for no other reason than the fact that most relevant New Approach Directives are/are-being worded to (quite correctly) bring in Risk Assessment as the first stage in the compliance process to the essential requirements. However, from my personal experience, there is a vast gulf in understanding between " risk assessment" personnel and "product-safety-standards" personnel, and they generally neither understand each other perspectives very well, nor their particular standards to any significant extent. Therefore for some committees to change their standards to a hazard-based approach, whilst others do not, "risks" even more confusion in the medium to long term. In addition, for the poor old manufacturer, the risk based approach could well be more onerous and expensive to perform in order to achieve his CE Marking compliance (or whatever) - especially if he manufactures a product that contains sub-assemblies that are certified to different requirements - how does he balance up the relative levels of compliance in order to certify his complete product without repeating all of one or other set of tests? My case does'nt stand at this point - it just waits for more clarification on the way in which things are developing! Regards John Allen,
