There are several federal agencies that enforce safety regulations for specific types of workplaces in the U.S. (FAA, DOE, DOI,etc), but only the Dept of Labor has the general worker protection mandate by statutory law. Others have their authority through adjudication and administrative law, where enforcement is an 'ancillary' process.
The respective agencies for Canada and Mexico were specified in my original reply, and have (somewhat) similar infrastructure and procedural systems as the U.S. DOL. The Canadian labor safety regulations are enforced by a governmental 'corporation'. Their labor law says something similar to "The design, construction, and install of all electrical equipment shall comply with CEC part I if reasonably practicable" (do not remember exact phrase but see section 8). NOMs, via the STPs are a bit more circuitous for electrical equipment certifications, but they exist as pro forma requirements. Brian -----Original Message----- From: Nyffenegger, Dave [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2014 6:34 PM To: Brian Oconnell; [email protected] Subject: RE: Certification of Unique Equipment In my research I have found only OSHA covers safety compliance regulations nationally in the US. And OSHA enforces their regulations on the employer not the manufacturer. Of course FCC requires compliance for EMC in the US but that can be self-certified. OSHA 29CFR1910 defines many things that must be approved and Subpart S-Electrical 1910.399 defines approved as "Acceptable. An installation or equipment is acceptable to the Assistant Secretary of Labor, and approved within the meaning of this Subpart S: (1) If it is accepted, or certified, or listed, or labeled, or otherwise determined to be safe by a nationally recognized testing laboratory recognized pursuant to § 1910.7; or (3) With respect to custom-made equipment or related installations that are designed, fabricated for, and intended for use by a particular customer, if it is determined to be safe for its intended use by its manufacturer on the basis of test data which the employer keeps and makes available for inspection to the Assistant Secretary and his authorized representatives. Approved. Acceptable to the authority enforcing this subpart. The authority enforcing this subpart is the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. The definition of "acceptable" indicates what is acceptable to the Assistant Secretary of Labor, and therefore approved within the meaning of this subpart." This directly addresses your question on "one of a kind system to a unique customer ". I guess it's up to the manufacturer to determine what test data is relevant, I've not found further clarification on that from OSHA yet. Perhaps others can chime in on that. Beyond that you still need to satisfy the AHJ requirements. For a specific customer at a specific location you'd have to research what that may be and whether NRTL certification is required or not. The US NEC is "national" but it's enforcement is by the AHJ which can choose to do what it want's with it. I've not identified the specific requirements for Canada yet other than CEC CSA C22.1 which I think is similar to the US NEC which requires that all electrical utilization systems are listed, labeled, identified or approved as compliant to the requirements of relevant electrical safety standards. This statement to me reads that a manufacturer could self-certify to the safety standards for US NEC or Canada CEC. -Dave -----Original Message----- From: Brian Oconnell [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2014 5:18 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PSES] Certification of Unique Equipment A simple generic answer would not be practical for most cases. Depends on intended end user and intended end use. For EMC, see 47CFR, Ch I, Subch A, Pt2, Subpt K (specifically §2.1204)for import of stuff. For U.S. safety of products in the workplace, see 29CFR1910. Many, perhaps most, design engineers are not aware of North American (OSHA/CCOHS/STPS) requirements for safety of equipment and buildings in the workplace, so not surprising that typical Joe Engineer is not aware of compliance stuff. Nobody cares about 'certification' until there is an accident, which is when your insurance company is legally allowed to abandon its client due to failure to conform. As for never seeing a safety auditor in the workplace, the federal safety agencies tend to focus on work sites having known problems. State and local agencies may focus on work sites where the probability for extraction of fees and fines are higher. For "what point is certification required" depends on the local building code enforcement for some stuff, and various state and federal laws for other stuff. For equipment not intended to be placed on the market, and clearly marked for evaluation, there are few federal requirements for any registered body to have performed an assessment where the usage is controlled for access and exposure (assuming medical or hazmat is not scoped). This is more than a compliance engineering issue - there are legal risks, some of which cannot be reliably mitigated in North America. In any case, once the equipment is sold for industrial use, even if a singular unit, it is typically subject to the federal regulations scoped for EMC and for the safety of equipment in the workplace. Brian From: Rick Busche [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2014 12:33 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [PSES] Certification of Unique Equipment It is always my desire to provide products that are CE Marked for Europe and NRTL listed for North America. That said, I continue to find products delivered for our own production environment that carry no safety marking that I can identify. I have discussed this concern with other engineers who worked in previous companies who indicated that they NEVER were required to have certification on their products. As I understand it I could deliver a one of a kind system to a unique customer without certification in North America. At what point is certification required? Is it based on the quantity of systems, the customer, the AHJ, OSHA or marketing? Is it allowable to ship a unique, prototype system to a specialized customer, without NRTL? Thanks Rick - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. 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To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <[email protected]> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://www.ieee-pses.org/list.html (including how to unsubscribe) 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]>
