Hello Don, At one time it was my responsibility to track, analyze and communicate all the product regulations affecting my company's products. At the time, we had a worldwide network of regulatory folks who were critical to making that possible.
What I have learned, however, is that you can never have enough sources. I believe there are four main categories of info providers: 1. Test/Certification bodies/orgs 2. Members of standards development committees (almost all you need are participants of this list serve) 3. Industry Associations and 4. Government websites/services Among the most extensive free sources are the Electronic Industries Alliance and the US Department of Commerce. Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) EIA (eia.org) provides the service, EIATRACK, which covers worldwide issues like battery regs, restrictions or bans of substances, haz waste, recycling, energy efficiency, etc. With that info you can get a comprehensive list of what is required, worldwide and state by state. You then have the choice of tracking down the details yourself or subscribing. Check out the info on the EU Battery Directive: <http://www.eiatrack.org/s/217?kw=>. Of course a copy of the Directive is free at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/sit /en/oj/2006/l_266/l_26620060926en00010014.pdf Another example might be the new China RoHS. EIATRACK doesn't provide everything you need but I would then direct you to Ken Kapur's Yahoo Group on RoHS. This Group also addresses WEEE, lead free, etc. Like the emc-pstc list serve, this Yahoo Group addresses practical implementation and I highly recommend it. Department of Commerce (DoC) The US DoC's International Trade Administration is often overlooked, but has an extensive amount of worldwide product regulations info at Export.gov. As an example, this website lists urls for the PRC gov'ts links for China RoHS at: http://www.export.gov/china/exporting_to_china/China_RoHS_links.pdf The International Trade Administration, through its US Missions in foreign countries, can also investigate specific requirements. They are not regulatory experts, but they are usually willing to track down answers to questions that are otherwise inaccessible if you don't have resources in those countries. Emerging Regulations For emerging regulations outside the US, I've found the NIST info pointed out by Chuck McDowell to be an excellent source. Test and certification organizations can also be very helpful here as well. Identifying all these regulations and standards is a lot of work and has to be followed by keeping the data current. However, you still don't have what you need until you've analyzed the requirements sufficiently to determine the impact on your specific products, as I'm sure you're aware. Best regards, Steve -- Steve Baldwin, P.E. Product Regulatory Program Management 1560 Park Avenue San Jose, CA 95126 408 838-2667 [email protected] On 5/8/07, Umbdenstock, Don <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks, Scott. That's a great tool if you know what standards you are > interested in. > > Does anyone know of a way to discover new requirements? For example, > California has mandated an energy conservation law that will require > finding new transformers for some products. > > Don > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Aldous, > Scott > Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 4:54 PM > To: Tarver, Peter; [email protected] > Subject: RE: Regulatory Search > > Techstreet has a free tracking service for standards updates. > > http://www.techstreet.com/tracking/track_instruct.tmpl > > Scott Aldous > Compliance Engineer > Advanced Energy > Tel: 970-407-6872 > Fax: 970-407-5872 - 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/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: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________
