The cost of potential penalties are a great argument to make in favor of compliance, however, there is the additional problem of establishing belief that the penalties are real.
When a company gets 'caught', they don't advertise it and they no doubt work to keep that embarrassing fact out of the news. How can one establish how frequently these penalties are invoked? Mere existence of penalties is often not enough if management doesn't believe it could happen to them. George Stults From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Woodgate Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 12:00 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: EMC Ethics Cortland Richmond <[email protected]> wrote (in <[email protected]>) about 'EMC Ethics', on Tue, 12 Jul 2005: > I've suggested that some future Symposium needs to include a block on >how to get decision-makers to do the right thing. Not what the right >thing is, mind; that's in the technical and regulatory sessions; *how >to convince them to do it*. Without, so to speak, falling on our swords. The best language for convincing decision-makers is Money. There is a math expression: cost of compliance < (costs resulting from prosecution for violation x probability of detection) Probability of detection depends on several variables, among which are: - which country; Germany and Austria in particular test products at random, in UK we have a network of listening posts (being greatly expanded) for detecting EMC disturbances (and no doubt other signals); - nature of disturbance; if it interferes with emergency service transmissions, it will be detected quickly (and the authorities will be implacable). Cost of compliance, of course, is minimized by 'designing compliance in', rather than imposing it after the design is allegedly finished. -- Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only. Deadlines are 90% of deadliness. http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/listserv/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [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://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/listserv/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [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://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
