The aims of the single European market include guaranteeing free movement of goods, preventing trade barriers and helping to ensure that the goods on the market are safe. Confidence in the work of testing and certification bodies is a vital aspect in achieving those aims. Accreditation can create the basis for that confidence and for mutual recognition of attestations of conformity.

It's not just products that have to meet essential requirements for the EU market. Europe-wide minimum criteria also apply to the bodies which test and certify those products. The “Global Approach to Certification and Testing” serves as the basis for mutual recognition of conformity assessments, without which the concept of free movement of goods cannot work.

Accreditation – a necessary but usually unpopular subject in the eyes of most testing and certification bodies. Why necessary? Only “authorised bodies” are allowed to award the voluntary GS mark as proof of tested safety and only “designated” or “notified bodies” are allowed to test and certify within the scope of EC directives.

The German federal government is currently considering reforming the German accreditation system. What are the reasons behind these plans?

Technical specifications, workshop agreements, publicly available specifications – the rapid development of modern technologies such as IT demands flexible products with short development cycles from the field of standardization too. Since the time it takes to draw up traditional standards with their extensive consensusbuilding procedures can only be shortened by a fraction, “quick” standardization products are becoming increasingly important.

When we hear about accidents involving medical devices, we tend to think that it’s the patient who’s been injured. In occupational health and safety, however, the focus is on the user’s health and safety when it comes to designing medical devices. A key aspect in this field is ergonomic product design. A set of guidelines developed on KAN’s initiative examines aspects which, from an ergonomic point of view, should be observed in addition to the common, obvious hazards (e.g. electrical hazards).

Germany’s federal states run their own testing bodies, referred to as equipmentinspection centres, to support their market- surveillance authorities. Standards play a pivotal role in market surveillance and, in particular, product-safety testing. KAN, in which all of Germany’s OH&S circles are represented, can help to ensure that the equipment-inspection centres’ findings are efficiently incorporated into standardization work.