CE marking and Brexit

I am lost a little, Great Britain is leaving the EU to take matters in its own hand, they should set there own (higher) standards to which all imports must comply and refuse all import with CE and other standards. Niko.

What is the point of that ??

That just makes everything, including what we manufacture here, more expensive. You can't have one standard for imports and a lower one for home produced stuff or the lawyers will have a field day.

Sorry Russell, I've just read much of the text of the EU machinery directive, it covers:

"assemblies of machinery referred to in the first, second and third indents or partly completed machinery referred to in point (g) which, in order to achieve the same end, are arranged and controlled so that they function as an integral whole" i.e. assembling a production line

and

"placing machinery on the market and/or putting it into service"

The HSE interpretation is clearly based on that basis.

(But they wouldn't cover John's example where items are transported between unlinked machinery in a sequence).

Neil

The point is that the UK wants all the advantages of the EU without any of the obligations, they were always reluctant members and kept on driving on the left while the rest of the EU drives on the right, so why make problems with CE standards as the UK standards have always been much better? Niko.

Isn't that what a standard is. Some universal bench mark from which everything else is derived. The main point of Europe was to ensure things fitted together whether it was workers rights, weights and measures or safety of fire extinguishers. Sounds like some of you lot metaphorically speaking want to go back the the good old days when everybody had their own individual 'screw thread' which worked fine until you went out of your own back yard and then you were stuffed. The CE mark is the combined best practice of all the member sates pre-existing regs. Why re-invent anything.

regards Martin

That's more than a bit of a generalization - I'd suggest that there is good evidence that almost half of the UK were happy to go along with their EU obligations

As an engineer working in international standards I'd be mightily surprise if our UK businesses don't continue to participate in, and attempt to influence, standards at the European level and more broadly whether we're in or out of the EU. We see more and more standards that are truly international particularly in Telecomms where I work and influence can be easily obtained with well located subsidiary companies or flags of convenience.

Jon

I don't interpret what you have stated as being a production line Neil. I see it relating to equipment that is built from multiple parts that may have ce approval and also stuff that will need it at some point. This is the problem with legal jargon. It's very easy to miss understand and assume it means things that it doesn't.

It's a logical extension of CE's on things like power supplies maybe linked to induction heating units. The result of that is something that should have CE approval on H&S grounds. Emissions too.

A production line may have one of these at some stage and many other dedicated pieces of equipment. What makes it a production line is that there will be some method of moving product from one stage to another and each movement will have a cycle time that needs to be the same for all operations the line performs. This often means that the slowest operation needs to have several stations to keep up.

Afraid I don't believe that anyone would want CE for that only H&S. These things are agreed and not just implemented by some dictatorial person.

No way would I employ you as a consultant. I do wonder if German interpretations could be some what different. It's a much more specific pedantic language.

John

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Hi, all.

We have brexit, which could be a golden opportunity to but Britain on the map again. However, It strikes me unless we get rid of the British disease whereby 10 men with clipboards tell the one poor little worker / business how to do/ not to do the job, and in essence just get in the way and cause unwanted problems, this country is going nowhere. It is no wonder this countrys productivity is so low.

As an aside, a friends son is at university studying electronic engineering. I understand part of the course is a requirement to study "Corporate Speak", I will say no more.

Kind regards

Anna

Rather than shooting from the hip, why not read the HSE pages and the directive like I did and speak froma position of knowledge rather than guessing?

Neil

What's this got to do with model engineering in any shape or form? Brexiteers will never see reason. Pull the plug moderators

Because it's far easier to trade worthless opinions than to speak from knowledge.

Do you actually have hard evidence to back that statement--- !!!

If you want an example of sub standard Britishness just start with motorbikes & work your way through cars whilst comparing them with Japanese ones then tell me UK standards have always been better

These are not the droids we are looking for.

I'm just basing what I said on what you posted Neil. No more than that and feel you are reading more than intended into it. Common problem with legal speak.

After a fashion in a very odd way this link mentions laws and the impact of the EU and the 2nd one expands on why they are likely to remain as they are. More legal speak I am afraid.

**LINK**

Afraid this one is rather long but it does get to directives etc eventually. It's mostly on costs but explains why things like this will remain.

**LINK**

John

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Unfortunately the reason for low productivity in Britain isn't really "10 men with clipboards". If it were really that simple the problem would have been nailed long ago.

Hard to fix causes of British low productivity compared with similar economies include: persistent 10% - 30% lower investment in equipment, transport, infrastructure and R&D; chronic mid-range skills shortages; decision making in business and government that tends to favour quick returns rather than long-term improvements.

Historically the shortage of mid-range skills shortages in Britain has been alleviated by immigration. It will be interesting to see how Brexit squares that circle! Heavy investment in appropriate education and training will be needed to upgrade our workforce and it might take a decade or so before the benefits appear.

Regards,

Dave

Well summarised Dave.

On a vaguely engineering-related slant to the theme, you may have noticed that apprenticeships became very passe a decade ago. Many employers realised that they could save money by giving their apprentices the heave-ho. I recall it very well and was horrified at the time. It doesn't help when you are trying to find a skilled workforce to compete with other countries. I guess we were "living within our means".

Traditional real apprenticeships that were not at least in part a method of getting cheap labour started disappearing a long long time ago. Too expensive when it was possible to get some one who could do the job. Time off for further education etc as well. This sort of relates to a rather odd one too - say you had a number of people who you might get another 10 or 20 years out of and there are certain levels of unemployment in a particular area - why bother training more?

I get the impression that graduates often have problems getting their first job in there chosen field. Having interviewed some I can well understand why. There is a job to be done and it needs some one who can definitely do it. And will do it when they find out what the job really involves. In some areas it's a fact that they are unlikely to contribute seriously for a fairly long time. There was a time when the sort of field I work in might have had 2 or 3 people about like that - if there were 10 or more doing the real work. More often than not now there will be just enough. Too many and somebody goes. So much for education. Companies did effectively do that themselves. These days suitable people have to grow on trees.

There is an education problem. Employers see them as a re assurance in terms of general levels of intelligence. Say O's and A's and expect people to have the basic skills that these imply. Seems they don't sometimes but as standards increase so do the job requirements so if someone hasn't got much in that line they can't expect much. This wasn't the case quiet a few years ago. If people could show the ability they could progress.

John

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Our family had apprentices for years but quite honestly the standard of Yoof coming forward became so poor that it became difficult to find any that could complete the training. So finally we gave up on apprentice training

When i sold my business & became a consultant i was asked by one company if I would like to undertake some training for them & I found some of the trainees so useless that I just had to reject 50% of those given to me

For example a degree student who thought 10% of £ 100-00 was £ 3-00. Another who could not work out the length of a centre line of a rectangular garage wall

As an aside I was later asked to sit in on a couple of interviews & they decided that I should start doing their interviews for them . The jobs were for quantity surveyors,- up to managing level, in the salary ranges £40-80K. On 35-40 interviews I found that 90% could not actually read a ruler - not knowing the difference between 90mm & 900mm. No one had ever actually thought of producing a tape to these people -who were supposed to be involved in measurement- at an interview. Over 50% could not measure the door to the office they were being interviewed in.

Mind you  even our MD was stuck on - if a cubic metre of earth weighs 2 tonnes how many lorries of 18 tonne carrying capacity are needed to cart away a million cubic millimetres of earth?            & one feels entitled to stick that into an interview for an £80K job just to get the bloke unsettled to see how he reacts to further questions

The education & training we give these people is so dumbed down to achieve a pass for the "tick sheets" that one wonders if we will ever be able to compete on the world stage

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 05/08/2016 07:10:44

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 05/08/2016 07:23:39

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 05/08/2016 07:33:11

This discussion isn't political or offensive and despite heated opinions it isn't abusive.

Anyone uninterested can ignore it, but we won't pull the plug on it.

Neil