Compliance Partner Program

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Compliance Partner Program

Overview:

Many companies do not have, or cannot afford a full time specialist in compliance.  In addition, there are not any compliance experts that cover the entire scope of what is proposed in Compliance Testing’s “Compliance Partner Program”. Generally, a company’s engineering team is comprised of design experts versus compliance experts.  There are many areas to compliance, including: standards assessment, country analysis, design review, sub component assessment, RF, EMC, Product Safety, Documentation, Filing, and Certification.

As a result of this deficiency, devices are often designed and developed without an “eye on compliance”.  Therefore, products are often over designed or under-designed.  Companies often spend more money than necessary to try to meet compliance or fail to pass the compliance testing at the conclusion of a long development cycle.  Failures in compliance often mean missed product release dates and increased costs to resolve the issues.  If this occurs in the midst of testing, costs can be expensive.

Future Markets:

Often times “future markets” are not contemplated.  For example, a company intends to sell the product in the US, but wants the option to sell into Europe or Asia, then engineering should ensure they know what standards will apply to both markets and try to meet those requirements in their design.

In the world of compliance testing, regulatory testing and product certification, a high percentage of products fail to meet the testing standards on their first compliance round.  Approximately 50-60% of products fail compliance on the first round of testing.  Had the company accounted carefully for the appropriate standards, specific designs, and other preventative measures Compliance Testing can provide, their success rate should increase to 95-100%.

In order to aid companies in this effort, we have created a Compliance Partner Program.  This program is like having numerous compliance specialists at your disposal.  There are many critical areas of support, outlined below, that can significantly reduce “time to market” and costs associated with a product’s successful release. The Compliance Partner Program will also significantly increase the likelihood of a product passing its first round of compliance testing versus finding critical issues within the product at the time of the compliance testing.  How costly is it for a company to have to re-spin boards, redo wiring, shielding, housing or replacing a power supply on the eve of releasing their product.  Compliance planning, in advance of the official compliance testing date, can make all the difference in the outcome.

Compliance Testing LLC offers all this in our Compliance Partner Program.

Early Stage, Pre Design Phase

Prior to initiating designs, it is critical to identify all the appropriate standards for the markets in which you intend to sell your products.  These standards must be adhered to and your product must pass testing to these standards in order to sell your products in the appropriate markets.  Standards are not the same for each market.  Do you anticipate your product going into US, Canada, Europe, Asia, and South America? Then with Compliance Testing’s Compliance Partner Program you can ensure your engineering team has all the appropriate standards, knows the standards and will design to the standards.  We can help you ferret out which standards will apply, and review special nuances about the standards that must be considered in your design.  Often the standards can be confusing, and or difficult to interpret, and generally we have tested them numerous times

and can help your engineers discern the appropriate interpretation so as to avoid misinterpretations and misapplications.

  1. Standards Application & Design Reviews; Pre-Prototype:

Once designs are completed, identify any potential compliance hazards by having a Compliance Testing LLCengineer, specialized and experienced in the standards and your device type, review the initial designs. This will help you to identify any potential areas of compliance risk that might have been overlooked, so you address them before you finalize your design specs, go to prototype or start ordering sub-components.

  1. Component Selection – Are your sub components, power supplies appropriately certified, compliant to the required standards or appropriately marked?

Problem:

Often manufacturers select sub-assemblies, components, boards or power supplies that are not properly marked or certified. This will ultimately impact the certification of your device.  Imagine failing compliance because one sub-component is not compliant or certified, and then trying to get that manufacturer to test and certify their device or modify it when you are ready to go to market.

Solution:

Compliance Testing’s staff can review your critical components before you incorporate them into your device. This will help to ensure they will not impact your final testing, evaluation or certification, so you will meet the requirements needed to get your product certified and to market.

Prototype Mode:

Problem:

Are there “Achilles heels” hidden within your product that will cause you to fail compliance or cause Emission issues, grounding issues, or Product Safety Issues?  If so, now is the time to ferret them out via testing and evaluations along the way by a compliance expert.  This is far less expensive, preventative work, than trying to discern an EMI issue while at a test lab in the middle of testing while trying to certify your device.   It is far easier to design it right, from the beginning, than try to reengineer your device when the release deadline is imminent and you are at the test lab.

Solution:

Have Compliance Testing compliance experts review the prototype and test the areas of likely failure, to ensure your device continues to stay “compliance ready”.  The Rule of Thumb in compliance is test early and often, to ensure that at each iteration your device continues to remain passable.  Generally, each material change to a prototype should have a quick compliance check.

Final Prototype:

Pre scanning and pretesting ensures there should little chance of failures on “compliance day”.  Send your final prototype(s) in for a checkup, a pre-scan, or pretesting to affirm its readiness for “compliance day”.  It’s like a trial run for a race car, before race day.

Ongoing Compliance Questions:

Generally compliance questions will come up along the development cycle that goes beyond a company’s in-house expertise.  Compliance Testing is available to answer compliance questions on the fly.  Generally we can get a compliance related question answered quickly to help you stay on track.

Filing & Documentation:

The filing, labeling and documentation process can also be a difficult and exhaustive process generating many questions.  Our staff are experts in this area and can save your staff countless hours in the documentation preparation and assimilation process.  In some cases, we can even collect the necessary documents for you.  We know what we need and where to look for subcomponent compliance specifications.

Summary:

Compliance is a necessary evil for all electronics manufacturers.  Generally most mid- size manufacturers cannot afford to have full time compliance experts on the team.  As a result, compliance commonly gets assigned to someone that has less experience than is necessary to ensure compliance readiness in all compliance areas. Individuals with all areas of compliance expertise do not exist; this expertise comes from a team of experienced experts.  Outsourcing this service is a logical and affordable approach.  In this way, a manufacturer can receive the best compliance advice via a subject matter expert when they need it and not have to pay an additional person to sit around until needed.  Compliance experts don’t exist within all fields of expertise; RF, EMI, EMC, Product Safety, Documentation and Certification.  Even the Compliance Testing staff doesn’t have all that expertise contained within one person and compliance is all we do. But our company does have that expertise within our team and can put the right person on your needs at the moment for each aspect of your project.

Guarantees:

As an accredited test lab, our compliance work on your behalf is not a “guarantee” that your device will pass all its testing.  As an ISO 17025 lab, we perform tests on devices to the appropriate standards and report the results. However, our compliance expertise can facilitate the likelihood that if proper “compliance planning” is incorporated into your device from its inception, the likelihood of “passing” at the time of compliance is much greater.

Fee Arrangements:

We have three basic fee arrangements:

Time and Materials Fees: Ranging from $195-$245 per hour for consultation and $350 per hour for technical trouble shooting utilizing our lab equipment and Subject Matter Experts.  A retainer is due to begin work.

Fixed Quote: The other arrangement is via a Fixed Quote based upon a specific Statement of Work.

Monthly Retainer: $2,500 per month to have access to compliance professionals to ask questions on a priority basis.  Most questions will be answered within a 24 – 48 hour time frame.  It is almost like having an expert on your staff.

 

To Get Started:
Call now to get started – 866-311-3268.

Let us know how we can best help your company reduce its development costs by improving its compliance preparation.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]