EDITOR’S CHOICE
SAFETY FIRST
Electrical safety testing during manufacturing production is not only critical but also beneficial, says Nathan Barwell, category manager at the Seaward Group.
T
he importance of electrical safety testing, which is paramount to ensure that powered
products rolling off UK production lines are safe and that consumers will not be harmed when they use them, is underpinned by safety requirements such as the Electrical Equipment Regulations in the UK and wider European directives, such as the Low Voltage Directive and product safety standards. These assert that comprehensive testing must be completed on electrical products that are either manufactured or returned for repair. Moreover, properly
maintained records of the product design for each manufactured item must also be kept. Manufacturers will also want to ensure that the
many electrical components used in their products comply fully with critical safety requirements, preferably before these are incorporated into finished items, and will therefore carefully check supplied components before or during final product assembly. It is good practice and why they request ‘Certificates of Conformity’ (CofC) from their suppliers as part of the supply chain procurement process.
A comprehensive electrical safety test
programme can highlight poor quality or low- grade components and identify areas for manufacturing improvement before products leave the factory gates. This can reap benefits for manufacturers, helping them to reduce costs across the production process as well as those associated with the repair and replacement of expensive ‘out-of-box’ failures.
BETTER MANUFACTURING PROCESSES By completing the production cycle with comprehensive product testing, significant information can also be gathered and used to improve and refine manufacturing processing and techniques. Identifiable reasons for product failures can be exposed and quickly acted upon. Even simple fault counters can be used to indicate those areas of the build phase that may require further investigation. It can also reduce the likelihood of design re-work and make the whole-time consuming process of recovering failure costs from the supply chain far quicker and easier. An added dimension of electrical safety
testing is the role it plays in delivering a competitive advantage. For instance, this can be built around a company’s capacity to offer full testing during their own production processes, which reduces the need for the customer to carry out their own testing, thus offering a level of added value which can be translated into increased profitability plus extra customer confidence and loyalty. But what is 100 per cent testing? Firstly, it
should be noted that we are talking about electrical safety requirements. Manufacturers will review their own processes for Class I and Class II products and accordingly introduce the three main tests for ensuring product safety: High
10 SUMMER 2021 | INDUSTRIAL COMPLIANCE / INDUSTRIALCOMPLIANCE
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