30 Safety
ATEX and IECEx – The Latest Developments from Europe and in International Certification
Ron Sinclair, General Manager, SGS Baseefa Ltd Rockhead Business Park, Staden Lane, Buxton SK17 9RZ, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1298 766600 • Fax: +44 (0) 1298 766601 • E-mail:
Ron.Sinclair@
sgs.com Web:
www.sgs.com •
www.baseefa.com
Both within Europe and internationally, the requirements for equipment and installations in hazardous areas continue to develop. One of the major causes of criticism of the European ATEX Product Directive is being addressed by changes in the way that Notified Bodies are appointed. Document requirements are also being aligned with some of the other “New Approach” directives. Internationally, a number of major plant owners are starting to ask about the availability of IECEx Certified Personnel to undertake work on their plant. Te scheme for Certification of Personnel Competence is starting to grow, and with it the demand for appropriately qualified people.
Developments in Atex
Sometime during 2013, we expect the European Commission to publish a number of updated directives under what is called the “New Legislative Framework” (NLF). The ATEX Product Directive 94/9/EC is one of the directives to be affected.
The thrust of the NLF is to ensure that similar requirements across more than one directive are expressed in the same way and, particularly, to rationalise the way in which Notified Bodies are appointed. The term “Notified Body” refers to the action of a member state “notifying” a certification body to the European Commission as being competent to act in the field of a particular directive. The problem, to date, has been that the process that individual countries have undertaken to decide if a body is fit to be notified are, to put it politely, obscure. Under the NLF, the normal requirement will be that the body must obtain accreditation from their national accreditation organisation (for example The United Kingdom Accreditation Service – UKAS – in the UK). This should ensure a more even standard of competence between the bodies, even though doubt is sometimes cast over the equality of the accrediting bodies. Unfortunately (in my opinion) the Commission have still left a little weasel room for bodies that cannot achieve accreditation, but any such body, appointed without accreditation, can be subject to challenge from any other member state.
Other than the change in appointment procedures for Notified Bodies, there is very little practical change in the proposed text of the new directive; certainly none that will require technical changes to products. However, manufacturers based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) will need to take account of different rules applying to Manufacturers’ Representatives and Importers based within the EEA. Essentially, the Commission have spread an existing requirement from some directives across all of the NLF directives and it will now be compulsory for the ATEX technical file information to be available from a legal entity (or legal person) established within the EEA. This documentation must be held for a minimum period of ten years after the last product of the relevant type has been imported.
My personal thought is that this could lead to conflicts if, for example, the importer is the end purchaser of an item of equipment and the manufacturer is not happy about providing the complete technical file. It could be that the manufacturer has to appoint an entity solely for the purpose of holding the documentation. I am certainly aware that this happens for the current version of the Machinery Directive. It should not be a problem for certified equipment, as the certifying Notified Body already holds most of the technical file (with the ten year minimum limit already imposed), or for non-electrical Category 2 equipment where a file already has to be deposited with a Notified Body, but it is definitely a new requirement affecting manufacturers of Category 3 equipment.
Probably the issue that will cause most concern is that the number of the directive will change. 94/9/EC will become history. This means that all related paperwork will have to be revised to show the new number. The European Commission are talking about a two year transition period, but I support the European Ex Notified Bodies Group in calling for this to be extended to at least five years, in order to give sufficient time for documentation to be updated. This is not just an issue for users of the directive, it is also an issue for legislators, in all the member countries of the EEA, who will have to prepare legislation and get it
A Flameproof Enclosure is only as strong as its fasteners. Do all those installing, inspecting and maintaining realise the need to use only the fasteners specified by the manufacturer?
implemented within that two year period. I am aware that some countries actually missed the July 2003 deadline for the original legislation, despite the 1994 publication of the original ATEX text.
The one area where we seem to have won a concession is that existing EC-Type Examination Certificates, referring to conformity with 94/9/EC, can remain valid under the new directive and do not need to be re-issued solely to change the directive number.
IECEx Competence Certification
As the IECEx Product Certification Scheme goes from strength to strength (with well over 10,000 product certificates and reports currently available for public search on the internet – see
www.iecex.com), so the related “User” orientated services are beginning to move forward.
Annual Buyers’ Guide 2013 •
www.petro-online.com
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