Dealing with the ATEX Directive

London - One of the new minefields for a product manager is the mandatory European Union Harmonised Safety Compliance Directives and Standards, with the most current being ATEX directive 94/9/EC. ATEX stands for “Atmosphere Explosive” (in French) and it is the law in the EU. Only EU certification agencies are allowed to certify products in accordance with the ATEX directive. Despite the fact that ATEX compliance testing has been mandatory in Europe since 1 July, 2003, many manufacturers are still not integrating the time, labor and cost implications of ATEX compliance into their R&D project planning and resource allocation.

It has become almost impossible to complete product design and secure its timed launching into the marketplace without considering all of the compliance issues necessary for the global marketplace. Clearly, a product should first and foremost be designed to conform to all the compliance requirements for all the targeted marketplaces, national and international. This may sound obvious, but many large and multi-national firms have lost huge contracts, big orders and even had to scrap designed products because they could not meet ATEX compliance requirements.

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