Remove the Risk and Be Ready for Future Business
According to North American safety requirements, all conductors of electricity must be approved, identified, listed or labeled. For unlisted equipment, which are usually customized and not intended to be mass produced, a field evaluation is common to get them approved by a local authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) for use. During field evaluations, the manufacture has the equipment evaluated and tested on-site by an AHJ-approved lab to ensure it complies to required standards.
In the case of equipment imported from outside of North American, an optional pre-evaluation, conducted where the equipment has been designed and manufactured, can play an important role. The failure of compliance to the proper standard or requirement can seriously impact business because the time spent correcting problems can take a long time. This is not only because the equipment manufacturer is unfamiliar with the North American safety standard, but also because of bad communication channels, language barriers, late responses caused by time differences and sometimes the difficulty of sending personnel to North America.
Pre-evaluation services can solve this problem. For example, in China, with an expert involved in the early stages, all participants—the end user, trader and the manufacture—benefit. With pre-evaluations, risk is removed through:
Pre-evaluation also prepares manufacturers for future business by:
To learn more about field evaluations and field labeling, including insights on Intertek's services, check out our information page and resources.
This is the second post in our series on field evaluations. Stay tuned for more from our experts on this topic.
As a business development manager for Intertek in China, Jim Mai has 14 years of experience in the testing, inspection, certification industry. He has a rich experience in field evaluation, handling field evaluation and labeling for thousands of pieces of equipment from China and offers unique insights for the Chinese market.
