Pierre de RUVO, Secretary General and CEO of ETICS    

 

 

Marcello MANCA is the VP of Government & Industry Affairs, Europe.  He has worked in the field of Conformity Assessment since 1981. M. Manca is the founder of Electro Service Italia, a safety testing and consulting company servicing industries from appliance, lighting and information technology to industrial control equipment.  In 1998, UL acquired Electro Services Italia to create UL Italia. 

 

Marcello’s presentation core message: “Data is evidently showing that the TIC industry plays a major role in decreasing risk for manufacturers and importers, avoiding serious injuries and fires for consumers worldwide, and providing a platform for market uniformity. The numbers are real, and they can easily be translated in number of lives saved, property losses avoided, social costs not incurred:  the suggestion for regulators and legislators is to welcome the TIC sector to the dialogue tables, so that the European (and other) conformity assessment framework can be reviewed, corrected, and improved.  The TIC industry is ready to help and support any effort that will help reduce the number of seriously non-conforming products that can fall in the hands of European consumers.”

 

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Jan DECONINCK is the current Chairman of the Product Safety Enforcement Forum of Europe “Prosafe”. This is a non-profit organisation established by market surveillance officers from various countries throughout the European Economic Area. Joint Market Surveillance Actions coordinated by PROSAFE are primarily funded by the European Commission and EFTA.

 

Jan’s Presentation core message: “Market surveillance on consumer products is requested by industry and consumers alike and has a dual purpose: ensuring the free movement of goods through technical harmonisation and guaranteeing a high level of protection of public interest. The key principle of the legislative framework is the use of mandatory technical requirements and the setting up of appropriate assessment procedures to prove conformity to these requirements. To ensure the correct application of these principles in the real world, they have to be monitored by competent national authorities. The main challenges for these authorities are:  diminishing resources (both human and financial), limited testing capabilities and a diversity of interpretation and application of the legal requirements, These challenges can be countered by extensive European co-operation via Joint Actions (funded by the European Commission), the establishment of accepted best practice techniques and the use of surveillance testing instead of conformity testing. The creation of multi-annual testing campaigns based on objective criteria and enhanced with a possible quick response to emerging issues should enable market surveillance authorities to meet future demands. Close co-operation and sharing of information with industry will therefore be necessary.”

 

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Pierre SELVA is currently the Schneider Electric’s Director for Conformity Assessment and Market Surveillance subjects. Pierre is currently the alternate member for France at the CAB and IECEE levels. He also holds the position of IECEE Treasurer from January 1st 2016 and he’s involved in several Working Groups of CAB and IECEE. 

 

Pierre’s presentation core message: “This presentation aims to emphasize the threat of counterfeited and unauthorized use of conformity marks on PRODUCTS, CERTIFICATES and DOCUMENTATION, not only in Europe, but also at the worldwide scale. It does not address the fair competition between different conformity marks coming or not from outside of Europe. It’s a manufacturer view, and we believe this threat could have strong impact on your (certification bodies) business. The main interest of this presentation is to raise awareness on this issue, and to propose some ways of solutions. Conformity marks are in the heart of our business as manufacturers and they bring some values that are of huge importance:  

• Safety of the products
• Specifics requirements not covered by safety standards
• Development of confidence between economic operators
• Increase of our statements credibility  
• And at least, it’s a lasting investment from manufacturers to convince our customers 

 

 

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