Competent Registrar for Major Electrical Components for Wind Turbine Manufacturer

R

RLewing

Well,

I have at least put my stakes to wind power now. Changed recently from a politically windy "subsidiary" position :frust: in medical devices to HQ :cool: of a new fast-growing company engaged in producing major electrical components to wind turbine manufacturers.

Planning to be ISO 9001 certified soon, which brings up a question to my fellow Covers: have you any knowledge/recommendations about any internationally operating registrar being especially competent in this field?

Best Regards
Raimo
 

Sidney Vianna

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R

RLewing

Marc, thanks for the branch.

What type of components? Transformers? Inverters?
Generators and inverters.

Disclaimer: I work for DNV.
I worked for DNV - 10 yrs ago.;) In fact we have met once, Sydney, I was over there for an audit. So your buddies will get a chance. I'm just scouting for alternatives, trying to be impartial.:eek:
 

Hershal

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One additional thing to keep in mind, if it is not already taken care of.....

You mention it is a new fast growing company.....if the products manufactured have not yet been "listed", then you will ultimately have to get the products tested and listed by an ISO Guide 65 accredited organization (e.g., UL).....there likely is a FINAS accredited Guide 65 body near you.....
 

Sidney Vianna

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if the products manufactured have not yet been "listed", then you will ultimately have to get the products tested and listed by an ISO Guide 65 accredited organization (e.g., UL)....
That implies that there is a regulatory requirement to have the product "listed". What is the legal requirement?
 
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R

RLewing

Re: Competent Registrar for Mfg of Major Electrical Components for Wind Turbines

One additional thing to keep in mind, if it is not already taken care of.....

You mention it is a new fast growing company.....if the products manufactured have not yet been "listed", then you will ultimately have to get the products tested and listed by an ISO Guide 65 accredited organization (e.g., UL).....there likely is a FINAS accredited Guide 65 body near you.....

That implies that there is a regulatory requirement to have the product "listed". What is the legal requirement?

For the European market we are declaring conformity to Low Voltage Directive and Machine Directive. According to my understanding neither explicitly requires involving a notified or competent body. We are naturally observing the relevant harmonized (mainly IEC) standards and have the technical documentation available as required.

We are not quite yet entering the US market so we have not investigated what legal requiremens exist there; will be thankful for and will consider any detailed information about that, too.

The testing is done mainly by us at our own facilities; a full load test to a multi-MW generator or inverter can not be done everywhere. Customer is often attending.

However a certification body will naturally get credit if they can also provide 3rd party testing, if our customers would require that. One stop shopping.

What I'm really after would be if anybody in the wind turbines or wind power production market has any first hand experience. I will naturally ask for references, but first I'd naturally would like to know which names have a positive sound at our customers and their customers.
 
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R

RLewing

Progress report:

Even though I have all the time been keeping you guys in my mind, I decided not to report our decision right away. But now it is time to do that in order to close this thread properly.

After considering three internationally operating alternatives (two with relevant offices here and one from Central Europe), we first dropped the foreign one because travel expenses would have made them significantly more expensive (without providing significantly greater value). The two local ones were invited to present themselves in greater detail and there was significant difference in the responsiveness.

We are very happy with our choice. The responsiveness observed during the selection phase continued during the audit process and the observations were quite relevant to us. By responsiveness I mean that the auditor e.g. understood our method of flexible working with our customers (the system integrators) who use our custom-built products as components while they are also in product development mode. An inxperienced auditor could have tried to force us to a mass production - frozen specification - "template". The IT people call that waterfall model and it really would not work for us.

After a hectic but interesting summer and autumn, up to last week, I today hold in my hand an ISO 9001 certificate from DNV.:biglaugh:
 

Hershal

Metrologist-Auditor
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That implies that there is a regulatory requirement to have the product "listed". What is the legal requirement?

For Europe, the answer has been posted in the last couple of posts.

For the U.S. market, the requirements come in under the OSHA NRTL requirements, although a Guide 65 accredited organization (likely to be ISO/IEC 17065 in a couple of years) is also accepted. The Guide 65 is known as "listing" by organizations such as UL, CSA, FM Global, Intertek/ETL, and others.

Hope this helps.
 
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