CECIP Newsletter September 2019
Fragmented reverification requirements cost industry over 6 million euro per year
The EU Single Market for goods and services is one of the key pillars of the European cooperation. It brings major benefits to industries such as the European weighing industry. CECIP welcomes the EU Single Market and calls on EU decision maker to strengthen it further by harmonising the reverification requirements for weighing instruments.
The fragmented legislation is a major problem for the weighing industry. CECIP carried out a survey amongst its members concluding that 50% of the companies in the European weighing industry don´t carry out reverifications abroad and the main reason is fragmented legislation. Moreover, for the companies that carry out reverifications already, the total costs of the differences in legislation are estimated over 6 million euro per year. For the weighing industry this is a large amount of resources that cannot be invested in other areas such as R&D.
Therefore, CECIP calls on two main actions by the EU. First of all, to introduce harmonised requirements for reverifications of weighing instruments at EU level. Secondly, to make sure companies only need to obtain one audit to carry out official reverifications.
The full CECIP position paper describing the situation can be found here.
CECIP website now available in French, German, Italian and Spanish
CECIP represents the weighing industry in countries all over Europe and aims at reaching stakeholders all over the world. To make easier for members and stakeholders to follow the CECIP news, the website is now translated in French, German, Italian and Spanish. You can find the translated versions of the website (www.cecip.eu) by clicking on the small globe with ´EN´ on the top right of the homepage.
Save the date: 21 November Dinner event in Brussels
After the successful breakfast in the European Parliament last year CECIP will organise another event in Brussels with key EU decision makers and Member State representatives. This year it will be a dinner event in Brussels on Thursday evening 21 November. All CECIP members are welcome for this event. Interested members can already block the date or register via: http://cecipvision2030.eventbrite.com. More information and an official invitation including the programme are expected soon.
Revision OIML R106 on rail weighbridges needed to make it future proof
OIML Recommendation 106 (R106) on automatic rail weighbridges was published in 2011. Since then there have been technical developments and changes within the market which CECIP believe necessitates a review of the OIML R106 to make it ready for the future
To determine the accuracy of any dynamic weighing instrument it is necessary to have a reference weight of the train wagons. This reference weight is normally obtained on a static instrument and then the weight is compared to that ascertained dynamically
Early rail weighbridge designs typical consisted of one or more static weighbridges, so both the static and dynamic loads could be easily calculated. This was however a time consuming and expensive solution. This has lead to the increase in the use of purely dynamic rail weighbridges. Early versions of these instruments were still designed around multiple bridge solution, so the static weighing of the train wagons was still possible
More recent designs of dynamic rail weighbridges are less suitable to easily determine the reference weight of the wagon.. Whilst users of rail weighbridges still have access to static scales the reference weight can be obtained but it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a suitable reference scale to determine the weigh of the train wagons.
Manufacturers are adapting to this changing market place by designing and manufacturing instruments suitable for use as an integrated reference scale. It does however appear that the current version of R106 did not clearly envisage such instrument and many of the definitions lack sufficient clarity with regard to these instrument . This frequently results in discussions between different stakeholders on the interpretations and inconsistent implementation across the single market
CECIP therefore proposes various amendments to the current version to reduce the ambiguity. CECIP believes that the changed market of rail weighing results in a situation where OIML R106 should be updated to be suitable in the future.
Read the full position paper here.
CECIP Visits InterWeighing 2019 in Shanghai
On 10, 11 and 12 July the InterWeighing fair 2019 was organised in Shanghai by CECIP´s International Partner Organisation CWIA (Chinese Weighing Industry Association). CECIP representatives Roland Nater (ICG president) and Karlheinz Banholzer (LMG president) attended the exhibition and participated in the opening ceremony. Additionally, there was a meeting with the weighing industry associations from China, Japan and US. The meeting was a follow-up on the meeting that took place at the CECIP General Assembly. Main topics of the meeting where relevant developments in legal metrology legislation and a further strengthening of the cooperation with activities such as the global newsletter.
