CE and UKCA Marks Are Just the Start—Here’s What You Really Need to Check
If you’ve ever gone machinery shopping and thought, “It’s got a CE mark, I’m good to go,”—you’re not alone. But as anyone who’s been stung by an equipment purchase will tell you, those little marks are just the beginning of the story.
At Ursa, we’ve recently seen a significant rise in new machines from both inside and outside of the EU that initially look like they tick the right boxes on paper but completely miss the mark in the real world and are in fact non-compliant, and raise real world safety concerns. Let’s look at what really matters.
Why You Can’t Rely on the Label Alone
CE and UKCA certification should show a machine has been tested against the relevant standards and is compliant, but here is a list of some of the common things we are seeing:
- CE Certification – CE Certificate signed by a non-EU testing facility. This does not conform to regulations, if a CE certificate is provided, it must be signed by a registered EU testing facility.
- Applicable Standards – The standards listed on the CE certificate are often not applicable to the actual machine. This is a common occurrence we are seeing used by suppliers to reduce the safety requirement of the machine and therefore manufacturing costs.
- Physical Equipment – Even when standards are listed on correctly certified CE documentation, we are finding some equipment still not complying with these and some of these essential basic safety and build standards required for a safe machine that they are listed as complying with.
- Safety Circuits – We have seen numerous examples of dangerous safety circuits that do not meet regulations or standards. When questioning this with manufacturers for clients there seems to be diminished knowledge of how to design a safe machine and overall machinery safety by equipment suppliers.
- Re-Certification – We have had numerous instances where we have question compliance with manufacturers for clients and they quickly produce a new CE certification listing different applicable standards to try and make sure they comply. The process of designing and risk assessing machinery safety should begin before the machine is built, and not be cobbled together at the end.
The Smarter Way to Buy – quick checks you can make
Here’s our checklist of essential items to review when investing in new equipment:
- Dig Into The Technical Docs – Check what standards are listed on the CE Certificate, a quick internet search will tell you which “C type” standard is applicable for that type of equipment, so firstly make sure that is listed on the certificate.
- Don’t Rely On Already Having A Similar Machine – Just because you have one already doesn’t mean they are safe – always make the checks.
- The Importance Of A Pre Delivery Inspection – A pre delivery inspection is vitally important. You should review the machine safety risk assessment and making sure that is applicable for the environment and application in which you will be using the machine, and test the safety circuits. Any changes that need to be made are much easier to make in the manufacturers workshop.
- Will It Play Nice with What You’ve Got? – Equipment manufacturers only assess the risks of their standalone machine – if you are integrating the machine to work with other equipment or there are other considerations such as FLT traffic to be considered then it is YOUR responsibility to asses this risk!
- What Other Certification Is Needed? – Once the line is installed and before operation you will need to complete a PUWER assessment of the equipment / manufacturing line it is installed in.
- Final thought – Is It Cyber-Safe? – Especially if it’s networked. Your machinery could be a backdoor to your whole system. We will discuss this further in coming articles..
How Ursa can support you
We don’t buy machines and are totally agnostic. As well as being machinery safety experts, our engineers have decades of experience at finding real world solutions to the problems we encounter. We provide bandwidth for you including managing the whole project from machinery specification to install and commissioning, or simply giving safety advise, and acting as client safety engineer or performing the necessary safety checks. The sooner we are engaged the quicker we can find give you assurance or identify potential issues that can be passes back to the equipment manufacturer to rectify at their cost – not yours.
Reach out if we can help you in any way.
Over to You
What do you look for in new equipment? Got a horror story—or a hidden gem of a supplier? Let’s share the good, the bad and the lessons learned.
