My e-mail generated a number of responses, all of which are appreciated.
Thanks everyone. I've included below the only response I got that
wasn't copied to the whole forum.
I'm still confused, however, so please indulge me with one more
go-around on this.
The BSI version, BS EN 60950, contains the wording "Incorporating
Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 3, and implementing Amendment No. 4, not
published separately". In the responses I received, there are two
different interpretations of what this really means:
1. That document does NOT contain the actual text of A4, and you
need to buy the IEC A4 and use it in conjunction (this from a
standards outlet who should know)
2. That document DOES contain the actual text of A4 and is
complete (except for A5 and A11 of course !#@%$!)
(this from 2 compliance engineers with copies in front of them)
If interpretation #2 is correct, then the BS EN including A1-A4 is
exactly what I was after, and I never should have bought the IEC's
separate A4.
Can someone please tell me with absolute certainty which is right???????
Also, does anyone have any inside scoop on any plans that may be in the
works to introduce a new EDITION of the standard, now that we're up to 6
amendments (A1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 11)? For that matter, why is it A11,
not A6?
Thanks for your help!
Regards,
Jim Eichner
Statpower Technologies Corporation
[email protected]
http://www.statpower.com
The opinions expressed are those of my invisible friend, who really
exists. Honest.
-----Original Message-----
From: RDBBRD [SMTP:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 1997 10:18 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Amendment A4 to 950 Standards
Dear Jim:
With regard to your recent purchase of IEC 950 (1997) A4 and EN 60950
A4:
1997, you obviously received exactly what you ordered and paid for. I
wouldn't lay the blame on your supplier for they did their job. As is
the
case with most document delivery services, they are only sales outlets.
Nothing more and nothing less.
As is the case, most regulatory compliance engineers (hopefully)
understand
their discipline, and have (hopefully) the ability to interpret the
documents
governing the compliance of their respective products, however, many do
not
understand the standards making process, the numbering of documents, the
updating of documents, etc.
The IEC is an international Standards Writing Organization (SWO) while
CEN and
CENELEC (the originator of ENs. The individual member states retain the
publishing rights, i.e. the copyright, and are responsible for the
distribution of the documents) are European regional SWOs, CENELEC being
an
electrotechnical SWO as is the IEC. CENELEC's charter states that it
shall
adopt in whole, or adopt and modify, whenever possible, an existing IEC
standard. CENELEC will only produce a given standard that is not based
on an
existing IEC standard when CENELEC is in complete disagreement with the
given
IEC standard. This accounts for the fact that the EN counterpart is
released
some time after the IEC document (review time of the IEC document for
making
any determinations as to the fate of their corresponding document).
An amendment is just that. The purpose of the document is to add to
and/or
modify the base document. All to often a buyer assumes that when
purchasing
an amendment (or for that matter, any other given document, whether a
base
document or other document), they will automatically receive a complete
document. They'd be well advised to look up the definition of
'amendment'.
Along the same lines, a 'supplement' may be issued when the information
is new
and supplementary and is to be added to the base document. Furthermore,
a
'corrigendum' typically contains corrective information, particularly
when the
affected document contains a 'typo' or the information was inserted in
the
incorrect place within the document.
In order to prevent down time (meaning having the information that you
require
when you require it), regulatory compliance engineers also need to learn
how
the SWOs operate, particularly in the area of the way a given SWO does
business.
What I am referring to is as follows:
1. The IEC sells all documents individually, meaning that where a base
document exists that also has amendments and supplements, each of those
documents are sold individually. This is true unless the base document
incorporates the amendment. The later does occur, particularly when the
base
document is reprinted (i.e when stock for that document is depleted) and
the
process continues until a new edition of the document is released, thus
eliminating the need for the amendment. However, I have never seen this
happen
in the case of a supplement, meaning the supplement is always supplied
separately (the supplement similarly disappears when a new edition is
released). In the case of a corrigendum, the IEC always supplies this
document to the original buyer of the affected document. Just cross
your
fingers that your supplier is on the ball and forwards the corrigendum
to you,
otherwise you may never realize what you're missing. As I had mentioned
earlier, the amendment is sometimes included within the body of the base
document when the base document is reprinted. This seems to be document
dependant and I have not yet seen this occur with IEC 950. Also, and
depending on the document, the release of a new edition of a given
document is
not dependant upon the number of amendments released against that
document.
In the case of IEC 950 (i.e. the various editions), there have never
been more
than 4 amendments per edition (as a matter of fact, the first edition
only had
3 amendments before the second edition was released). On the other
hand, the
second edtion of IEC 335-1 (household appliances...) had more than twice
as
many amendments (as the first edition of IEC 950) prior to the release
of the
third edition. Given the size of some of the amendments to IEC 950, in
addition to the number of amendments, and the total cost of purchasing a
complete document (most SWOs base the pricing of their documents on a
price
per page basis), you may think that the IEC's profit is great (all costs
go
into administration, development, publishing, distribution, etc.
Committee
members are not paid by the IEC!). The truth of the matter is that the
entire
standards making process is an enormous undertaking, and most SWOs are
not for
profit type entities (committee members don't get paid unless they have
a
sponsor, i.e. their employer pays them to sit on the committee).
2. CEN and CENELEC operate differently when it comes to the supply of
documents. When a base document is purchased, you automatically receive
(and
are charged for) all amendments affecting that document (most document
suppliers operate in the same manner, unless of course they're greedy or
don't
know any better). However, you may purchase a given amendment
seperately
(knowingly or not, if you request a given amendment, that's all you
get). CEN
and CENELEC's premise is good in a way (when it comes to purchasing a
base
document and supplying all updates at the same time) as you don't miss
out on
any information as you would when purchasing an IEC base document,
unless of
course, that's all you require. (The later is true, let's say for
example in
the case of liability litigation where a product was produced at a given
time
and the document only consisted of the information existing up to the
time
frame in question with regards to the litigation and any additional
information, i.e. amendments, supplements, etc. did not yet apply to the
product in question).
The way that CEN and CENELEC produce documents has changed over the
years.
There was a time when these SWOs produced 'common modifications' meaning
that
if a CEN or CENELEC document was based on an IEC document that was
adopted and
modified, only the modifications were published (as well as the date of
effectivity and any grandfathering) and the base IEC document had to be
purchased separately otherwise you had a CEN or CENELEC document that
was
meaningless on its own. There was similarly a time when CEN and CENELEC
produced an amendment consisting of one to several pages in length when
its
IEC counterpart was more than several and up to hundreds of pages. In
this
case, the CEN or CENELEC document would simply state that the amendment
was
identical to IEC ... A... (and again the date of effectivity and any
grandfathering) and you would need to additionally purchase the the
corresponding IEC amendment, otherwise, and you guessed it, you would
have an
incomplete document. Nowadays it seems that SWOs such as, and in
particular,
CEN and CENELEC produce their own complete documents meaning that,
depending
on where in the world your company markets its products, you are usually
forced to purchase both documents in their entirety (if you are
unfamiliar
with ISO 9000 registration, and similarly DIN EN ISO 9000, BS EN ISO
9000,
etc. the registrant is required on have on file, current editions of
documents
affecting its products, in order to remain compliant with the
registration).
An expensive proposition as can be quickly realized.
In a nutshell, you need to know exactly what to ask for when it comes to
purchasing a document. When in doubt, ask the supplier exactly what
your
purchase will include (also, consult with the respective notified or
competent
body as to what applies, including any amendments, supplements, etc.).
Also
ask what edition the document is (it is efficient when asking for a
given
document by the edition date as multiple editions don't usually have the
same
publication date unless the technology for the given product changed
overnight, literally, which would require a new edition to keep up with
the
trend). It also pays to ask "do any amendments, supplements,
corrigendums,
etc. exist affecting the document in question" (I stated 'document' here
rather than 'base document' for an amendment or supplement can have a
corrigendum issued against it also). Be inquisitive! If you don't ask
them,
they most likely won't ask you or tell you (unless they have good
business
sense and thus realize by doing so will ultimately increase their
sales).
I apologize for the lengthy dissertation here. Persons involved in
regulatory
compliance need to realize that their discipline involves more than just
knowing how to interpret a document and in turn how to apply that
document to
their products. Document delivery services employ sales personnel and
NOT
regulatory compliance engineers (although, once upon a time, a document
delivery service did exist that employed regulatory compliance engineers
and
not sales personnel). It is not their job to know the document, just to
sell
it. Also, not knowing what to ask for can cause downtime (getting the
product
to market), can cost you plenty (re-engineering the product to include
what
was missed in any updates), can make you look foolish (well, the
document
supplier didn't tell me it existed - whose job is it anyway?), and make
you
feel downright silly in the presence of your managers and peers (well, I
didn't know - Do I really know my job?).
As I am not registered to the IEEE EMC boards (don't have time to weed
through
all of the e-mail) and thus may not post directly, please feel free to
post my
response for the benefit of others (you may only post this if it is
posted in
its entirety).
Kind regards,
Rolf-Dieter Burckhardt,
Sr. Specialist - Product Safety Engineering
[email protected]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Eichner [SMTP:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 1997 12:45 PM
> To: 'EMC-PSTC - forum'
> Subject: Amendment A4 to the 950 Standard(s)
>
> Season's Greetings:
>
> I have just reviewed the two "versions" (IEC vs. EN) of "A4" to 950
> that
> we received
> recently, and I'm confused.
>
> As outlined in the attached e-mail below, A4 is extensive, and
> modifies
> most of the pages in the standard. What we really need is a complete,
> stand-alone EN60950 incorporating all amendments up to and including
> the
> IEC's A4 stuff. I am now in doubt whether this exists!
>
> Here's what we ordered and received:
>
> We ordered IEC950 A4 and received an inch-thick set of replacement
> pages
> that need to be inserted into an existing copy of IEC950 (1991). What
> we thought we were getting was a stand-alone completely updated IEC
> standard. Oh well.
>
> We also ordered EN60950/A4, formally titled "Safety of information
> technology equipment (IEC950:1991/A4:1996, modified)". This document
> is
> only 15 pages long, contains only a few revisions (primarily some
> "common modifications" and new/revised annexes ZA, ZB, ZC, and ZD),
> and
> is meant to be used with EN60950:1992 and its previous amendments A1,
> A2, and A3. Its content in no way resembles the list of changes
> below.
>
> Am I incorrect in expecting the EN's A4 to implement the
> IEC's A4, or is the EN's A4 unrelated, and
> the EN version of the IEC's A4 is still to come?
>
> Can someone please explain what's going on here, and point us
> to a source for a complete, stand-alone EN60950 incorporating the
> IEC's
> A4
> amendment?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jim Eichner
> Statpower Technologies Corporation
> [email protected]
> The opinions expressed are those of my invisible friend who really
> exists (honest)!
>
>
