Clearview North December 2013 - Issue 145 | Page 39

CEMARKING “I’m sure you’ve heard the old folk tale about the Little Red Hen,” says Mike Gaillard, Joint Managing Director of CENSolutions. “The Little Red Hen finds a grain of wheat, and asks for help from the other farmyard animals to plant it, but none of them volunteer. At each stage of the process, through to baking flour into bread, the Little Red Hen continues to ask for help to no avail. Finally, the hen has completed the task, and asks who will help to eat the bread. This time, all the animals eagerly volunteer to help eat the bread. Little Red Hen declines their help this time and enjoys the bread without them. The moral of the story of course, is that those who don’t put the effort into something shouldn’t get the rewards when they come to fruition. “What has this got to do with CE Marking I hear you ask? Well six months on from the implementation date and we continue to hear from companies who have put in all the hard work they need to, to ensure compliance, but who feel let down by the lack of support from industry bodies. Repeated requests for help have gone unheard. In particular no-one seems to want to take responsibility for the policing of the new standard, which means it is up to Trading Standards to keep track of it. Although Trading Standards are excellent at what they do, they don’t know our industry and how CE Marking applies in the same way our industry bodies do. The feedback we are getting from the industry is that they simply don’t feel that CE Marking is being taken seriously because of the lack of policing. CENSolutions has been doing all it can to address the issue by working with Trading Standards to help them understand the implications in more detail, but we’re disappointed on behalf of the companies that have made the effort to comply, that they aren’t getting the support they hoped for. “Despite this disappointment, as in the story of the Little Red Hen we would urge companies to keep going where CE Marking is concerned because we believe that companies that take the high ground and do things properly will reap the rewards they deserve in the end. And at the end of the day, regardless of the policing that is or isn’t in place, let’s not forget that CE Marking is now law.” How is the joinery industry coping with CE marking? A report by software provider Joinerysoft. Interest was high initially, with over 150 joiners attending the first CE marking seminar run by Joinerysoft Ltd in June, just before the regulations became law. Joinerysoft has run three workshops on CE marking but predict that many hundreds, if not thousands of joinery manufacturers are still not CE marking. Invited to present a CE marking workshop to building control officers provided valuable feedback on the stance taken by both building control and trading standards officers. Joinerysoft received the impression that while these enforcers get up to speed with the new legislation themselves they are giving a grace time to comply until early next year, but clearly this will vary from region to region. Joinery manufacturers are commonly reporting that they are now increasingly being asked for u-values by architects and customers. Bearing in mind this became a legal requirement in 2010 could indicate that CE marking may similarly lag behind the legal commencement date. Even though the legislation may be slowly policed, feedback from building control suggests that building control officers may be the advance field workers of trading standards to report back instances of non-compliance. Certainly building control has To read more, visit www.clearview-uk.com intimated that they will not be signing off work that does not have a required CE-mark. The reality is that CE marking legislation has simply brought together all other regulations that should have been complied with already. CE marking itself isn’t difficult and those companies that embrace it will be able to shout about it in their marketing further increasing customer awareness and raising expectations. For joinery companies that use Joinerysoft’s Joinery Management System (JMS) it is a quick solution to compliance with CE marking involving perhaps 1 hour’s set up. Customer of Joinerysoft, Tockwith Joinery confirms, “The CE marking took very little time to set up. Joinerysoft has made it very easy.” Alan Turner, Managing Director at Joinerysoft says, “After the initial rush of joinery companies anxious to comply there are many more that are avoiding the issue. There are a number of CE marking solutions available to the industry suitable for both large and small manufacturers so there is no excuse not to be legal. Our advice to manufacturers – ‘Don’t bury your head in the sand’.” DEC 2013 39 CLEARVIEW EXCLUSIVE THE LITTLE RED HEN OF CE MARKING