Good luck finding a concensus. Each company usually has their own way of doing things. I'll answer for how I have set things up.
(1) Roles and responsibilities of approval engineers. Is the person doing Safety and EMC testing separate from the telecom approvals guy? No one in the same. Here, the approvals group schedules testing, does all communication/ correspondence with the different agencies, files all applications, (yup all those reams of paper work), conducts design reviews, and reviews reports. The actual development engineer is responsible for the product passing, so they go with the product to testing versus the approval groups. (we go sometimes to help out and to stay sharp but first choice is the design guy/gal). (2) How does the process tie into the main development process? For example, is there a certain country criteria that must be met before shipping? If so, how does the approval process get structured in? Here, the approval process is structured into the engineering process. Thus the marketing requirements document states which countries the initial release is intended to ship into, the design spec calls out the country requirements, the eng schedule calls out the testing, and the final design review includes the review for that countries requirements. My advice, try to be part of the process versus getting product thrown over the wall to you for you to make compliant. Ask for a compliant product and see that the developers know the requirements. Get involved from the conceptual phase or plan to fight for rework after the development team has moved on to higher pastures. Mostly, I am looking for anyone that would be willing to share their experiences with me. I am more than willing to share mine! Thanks! Ginny Lee
