SS,
Sorry I haven’t replied earlier, I have been away from the office on business.
Ok, so you are an end user.
I have just noticed that your location is listed as Ireland, now I have no idea on how the mainland UK legislation translates to that in Southern Ireland, if that is where you are, AFAIK the North is under mainland UK rules?
However, Ireland should have its own implementations of the equivalent mainland UK legislation as they are based on EU directives.
The following comments all apply to mainland UK legislation, however, realistically, there should be equivalents in both North & South of Ireland, if the mainland legislation does not apply there.
Also, thinking back to your OP, you don’t need “any” qualification to “sign off” the machinery as being CE marked.
However, it’s not something that I would do in your situation, unless you are paid handsomely.
You are personally stating that the equipment complies, in full with the MD, this signature should be made by a legally responsible person in the organisation, unless you are?
Normally the Managing, Technical or Engineering Director would sign the DoC, as they would have legal responsibility under company law to ensure that those working for them undertook the work with due diligence, unless you are in a position of authority within the company such that you are a Director, or hold equivalent authority within the company?
As the job titles I have listed here suggest, within machinery manufacturers, which is where CE marking under the MD is normally done, it’s not an H&S function it is an Engineering function, as it’s simply part of their engineering systems embedded in their design and manufacturing procedures.
This signing of the DoC, is not like an Electrician signing off the EIC for adding a few sockets or a light circuit in a home in accordance with BS7671, or signing that you have undertaken a risk assessment for some manual handling.
If you are signing a DoC, you are stating categorically that the machine has been completely designed and constructed in accordance with the MD, and the relevant standards, which as usual you don’t need to comply with, but, if you don’t, then you will need to prove how you have complied with the EHSR’s.
Remember, designing and building to C type standards, gives you a presumption of conformity if they are harmonised.
You would then be responsible for the technical file etc. etc.
To sign a DoC, is a huge legal responsibility, normally reserved for those who are already personally legally liable for the actions of the organisation, as it is merely an extension of that personal legal liability.
If you do decide to do this personally, then I strongly suggest that you either ensure that you are covered by your employers professional indemnity insurance for this, have our own personal indemnity insurance or are otherwise legally absolved of the personal responsibility, explicitly, via your contract of employment or other legally binding document.
You have openly admitted that you don’t understand the process and the requirements, therefore you are not in a position to be sufficiently competent to question the designs and decisions of your Professional Engineers, unless you are their line manager.
So…
How old is the equipment that you have modified?
How old is the equipment that you inherited?
Remember that the first requirement for CE marking was around 1994 so before this the equipment would not have required CE marking, thus no requirement to retrospectively CE mark equipment that was first placed on the market in the EU prior to the requirement for CE marking.
As an end user, you will find it extremely difficult to correctly and fully CE mark a machine retrospectively.
Just a simple thing, as an example, how will you assess the machine in isolation for noise emissions whilst in your manufacturing facility?
I suspect that you will find it very difficult if not impossible to undertake in compliance with the MD.
However, you could just do a noise assessment of the environment as a whole under other legislation much more easily.
As an end user, you should really be more interested in PUWER compliance, and realistically you should already be there anyway.
If the machinery is safe “under” PUWER, then it is almost certainly safe to use, regardless of the academic invalidity of the CE mark. (TBH there are so many incorrectly CE marked machines out there that it has almost reached the state of being worthless.)
What will be the business benefit for your employer to actually CE mark the equipment, over and above undertaking a detailed PUWER assessment with any remedial works in accordance with the current machinery standards?
Also, increasing machine safety does not necessarily totally invalidate the machines CE mark.
Firstly, you need to be looking as to why you need to improve the safety of the equipment.
Is it either the wrong equipment for the job, or it does not meet the requirements of the EHSR’s of the MD for the equipment? i.e. if it was CE marked in the first place, was that CE mark worth the plate it’s printed on?
These are things you should sort out in your procurement process, if the machinery is unsafe to use when you buy it, simply don’t pay for it until it is safe & complies with the MD.
You need to get this built into your procurement systems.
As far as courses go, I would suggest that you look at electrical, electronic, software, mechanical and fluid power, possibly mechatronics degrees first that cover the sort of machinery & systems you will be validating, however, you would be looking at realistically 4-5 years of full time undergraduate study, then you would need to cement that theoretical knowledge with practical design experience in meeting the design that you are looking to do, so probably another 4 years of cross disciplined mentoring.
Then you will begin to understand the level of detail that is required for machinery & control systems design, don’t expect to be able to validate software though in this time, as there are just too many flavours of software out there to learn them all in detail, you might pick up one or two in that time, if, you use them a lot.
If this is the route that you are looking at, I would forget CMIOSH and be looking for IEng, or CEng, as the kind of things you need to learn are much more closely aligned to Engineering than H&S, or what most people see as H&S, and the sort of H&S that is taught on NEBOSH type courses.
Unless you are designing and manufacturing the equipment, for placing on the market, then CE marking is pretty irrelevant, unless, you are importing equipment from outside the EU, and placing it on the market within the EU.
I would urge you to look further at the PUWER assessments that you do, you do undertake PUWER assessments on your machinery yes?
Then ensure that the machinery is safe against PUWER.
Now where you as an H&S professional can really add value to the process is to highlight that the equipment is deficient, work through the PUWER assessments with your electrical and mechanical Engineers (& I don’t mean fitters & electricians), these guys must understand the requirements of the PUWER legislation, you can guide them in this then your Engineers can design and get implemented upgrades to ensure that the machinery is safe and compliant with PUWER98.
Remember, HSE will collar you under PUWER, first and foremost. It’s easier.
Plus, more importantly, if the machinery has a clean bill of health following a full detailed PUWER assessment and subsequent remedial works, then it will be safe to use, so you won’t have any potential injuries so no cause for HSE to be concerned.
You should be highlighting the safety issues that you are seeing, and investigating why these issues even exist on the machinery, highlight these to the rest of the organisation, and get the systems changed so that these machines don’t slip through the net as it were.
Feed into the machinery procurement process so that these safety failings you are seeing don’t repeat themselves, go back to the machine vendor, because, if you are in need of modifying them to make them safe, then the machine is not fit for purpose, and is not suitable for placing on the market in the EU, therefore the machine builder is trading illegally, by virtue of the fact that they are placing machines on the market that do not comply with the EHSR’s, and, thus they are also committing fraud by CE marking equipment, that does not meet the requirements to bear the CE mark.
If you are going to go down the road of CE marking the equipment yourselves, and are adamant that this is the way you are going to go, then you will need to get hold of the A standard, and the relevant B & C type standards, mind you would need these to undertake any design modifications competently anyway if you are looking at the modifications you have done or would need to do.
e.g the A standard is EN 12100 (£226), an example of a B type EN 953 (£174) & an example of a C type standard is EN 60204-1 (£262), so that’s £662, and you have one of each, OK, there is only one A type, about 95 B type, and probably 1000 C type. (I’m too lazy to count them!)
Realistically for typical Engineering manufacturing machinery, you would be looking at circa £10k in standards, less if you are a BSi member company.
You will not require all of the B & C type standards, but, you would need all of those relevant to the machinery that you are working with.
Remember, unless you have copies of the standards, and you sign the DoC, how can you be sure that in signing the DoC, you are actually compliant…