compliance

Standards are increasingly important in our modern global economy – supply chains can be dizzyingly complex, and implementing the economic theory of comparative advantage has been more and more possible as the relative cost of transportation has declined over the years. Since the 1890s, the United States has been the world’s top manufacturing country. The world continues to change. Recently it was reported that China surpassed Japan as the second largest economy, and it is estimated that China will soon surpass the United States.

Most manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment have some sort of a regulatory compliance program. These may be part of the company’s internal procedures, a subscription to a compliance related database or various bits and pieces of information held by key people within the organization. No matter how complex or simple, it is imperative that management involved in global regulatory compliance issues have the right information needed to make their programs work efficiently.

Product liability has created problems for manufacturers and product sellers for many decades. These problems have been exacerbated by the expansion of product liability laws throughout the world. In addition, there has been a proliferation of safety regulatory requirements, starting in the United States and then moving to the European Union. In addition, countries such as Japan, China, Australia, Canada, Brazil and South Africa have all recently established or strengthened their product safety regulatory regimes and requirements.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed forfeiture penalties against three Tier III wireless carriers in Texas and Oklahoma for failing to offer their customers the required number or percentage of hearing aid compatible (HAC) handsets.

The Commission of the European Union (EU) has published an updated list of standards that can be used to demonstrate conformity with the essential requirements of its directive relating to the safety of toys (88/378/EEC).

In the ever-changing global economy there is a growing number of product regulatory compliance requirement standards being imposed on manufacturers. Before marketing their products to domestic and international customers a manufacturer must deal with regulatory issues that apply to the development of their products. This results in the manufacturer having to have a regulatory compliance function within his company’s organizational structure that is staffed by competent well-trained personnel. This includes a Compliance Specialist who will need to stay abreast of the steadily changing regulatory compliance requirements, technology advances, and new areas of product regulations. The primary areas where product regulatory compliance requirements are applied are EMC, Product Safety, Environmental Protection, and Energy Conservation. All of these requirements have a direct impact on a product’s development program that includes its quality and reliability attributes.