:: CE Marking ::

The machinery directive 2006/42/ec and the other Community Directives, define all the documentation that the manufacturer or importer of materials, products, machinery or plant must produce to affix the CE mark.

The most important part of the documentation and of the same CE, indicated in all the directives related to the products subjected to marking is represented by the technical file and unluckily as often happens this is the part less known and most neglected, perhaps because it is the most complicated and is at the base of the completion of the product.

The technical dossier is a collection of all the documents made during the design, the construction and the testing of the machine. In it are included the structural calculations, the characteristics of the materials used, the building designs, plans, the documentation of the material by trade, the measurement of airborne noise and of electromagnetic compatibility and all the other main features of the product.

First of all the technical file must include an nanalysis of the risks, that is in fact the starting point of departure of all the necessary work for the CE marking.

The technical dossier should not be provided to the customer, but must be stored at the manufacturer, it is not necessary that is physically present in order to affix theEC mark on the product.

The rules require that, if there is a request by the competent authorities, the manufacturer is able to make it available in the time required.

This aspect makes that often the companies underestimate the problem, leaving to a possible inspection the need to produce the document.

The technical file must be carefully analyzed with a technical that knows, in addition to the technical aspects, also the legal ones.

For this reason, the implementation of this document and the retrieval of all the necessary information for its software represent the more longest part of the work, the more costly and difficult of the CE marking.

Each product, whatever is the obligation ofEC MARKING, should be subjected already in the design phase at the risk analysis.

This activity is the most important part of the technical dossier (see Article), and it is absolutely essential.

This intervention, for which there can be applied different methodologies, aims to analyse in detail the mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, environmental, operational characteristics of the machine or of the product in order to highlight possible sources of risk for the user, the operator or for the product itself.

From the analysis of risks, that must be introduced at the beginning of the creation of the product, comes a list of risks that should be eliminated already in the project.

Where this is not possible, and the risk remain in the residual part, there must be mentioned all the countermeasures that the user must take to an appropriate care.

Such information, identified with the term “residual risks”, should be written in the Manual of use and maintenance and reported where possible on the product.

From the above there are two fundamental aspects:

• TheRisk analysis must be performed by a technical, preferibly outside the company organisation, to ensure a vision third. Only with this system are highlighted very often neglected aspects assimilated as routine.

• The implementation of the Manual of use and maintenance must always emerge from an analysis of the risks already carried out. One of the most common errors is actually to achieve firstly the manual, and only in a second time the technical dossier and the analysis of the risks.

The products for which the EC mark is mandatory are many. For this reason and for their diversity are identified in categories and in families.

We provide the following list of categories and for some of them we show some family among the most important, an indication more comprehensive can be provided by our technical directly or through the Forum.

CATEGORIES OF PRODUCTS

• Gas appliances
• Lifts & Forklifts
• Electrical equipment in general and not
  • Stairs
  • Portable tools
• Weighing instruments
• Construction Materials
  • Wooden beams
  • Gates and doors
  • Washbasins and washbasins
  • Plates in polyurethane foam and polystyrene
  • Concrete elements
  • Hinges for doors
• Personal protection equipment dpi
  • Work gloves
  • Latex gloves
  • Caps for the ears
  • Shoes for work
  • Work clothes in general
  • Helmets
• Medical devices
• Toys
• Generating sets
• Simple pressure vessels
• Machines
  • Machine tools
  • Earth-moving machinery
  • Lifts
  • All the machinery with at least a movable component
  • Composition of two or more machines each marked EC
• Electrical equipment
  • Lighting equipment
  • Appliances
  • Transformers
  • Electrical components
  • Composition of one or more technology or components, each more marked EC
• Batteries
  • Lithium
  • To elements immersed
  • To cadmium, lead and other components
• Equipment for protection in explosive atmospheres
• Boiler water heated with oil fuel, solid and gas
  • Burners
  • Pellet stoves
  • Wood Stoves
  • Fireplaces and flues
  • Boilers pellet and wood-fired
• Recreational craft
• Electromagnetic compatibility
  • Characteristic of all the products to electric operation
  • Characteristic of machines with rotating parts
• Structures for protection from falling objects
• Structures for protection from overturning
• In telecommunications terminal equipment
  • Mobile Phones
  • Radio transmitters and/or receiving
  • Equipment also portable emitting or receive electromagnetic waves
  • Autovelox
• Lawnmowers

The EC mark has the literal meaning of European conformity and in concrete terms it is the graphics demonstration that the product to which it is applied respects the laws in force within the European Community that govern the production and the place on the market of that product.

The CE mark, if properly applied and not in a wrong way or even fraudulent, ensures that the product was designed, constructed and it has a use which is in respect of the existing rules.

A Product withCE starts from the analysisof the risks which it has in all phases of his life, from the installation to the use and the maintenance until the disposal.

In addition the manufacturer is able to demonstrate with certain procedures that during all the production passage there have been adopted all the precautions to ensure that the characteristics of the product remain constant and comply to what was designed and declared.

A product marked EC must be always detectable for individual or for production batch, not only going back to the producer, but it will be possible to know the suppliers of components and their requirements declared or tested.

The EC mark declares implicitly that the product has a design and documentation specific to calculations, tests, inspections and in some cases the proof that a notified body attested its comply.