IEC CAB meeting
02 dec. 2021
After seven years as an elected member of the IEC CAB (Conformity Assessment Board), Fredrik Wennersten recently attended his last CAB meeting at the 85th IEC General Meeting in Dubai, UAE.
The IEC CAB is the Board of the four IEC Conformity Assessment Systems and is responsible for setting the IEC’s conformity assessment policy, promoting and maintaining relations with international organizations on conformity assessment matters, creating, modifying and disbanding conformity assessment systems, monitoring the operation of conformity assessment activities and examining the continued relevance of the IEC’s conformity assessment activities in general. The four IEC CA systems reporting direct to IEC CAB are:
- IECEE CB scheme for electrotechnical equipment
- IECQ for electronic components
- IECEx for equipment for use in explosive atmosphere
- IECRE for equipment for use in renewable energy applications
Members of the CAB are elected for three-year terms. You are only allowed serve two terms, after that you need to make way for new members.
For the first time, the IEC General Meeting was a hybrid meeting. So was this year’s annual CAB meeting which was divided into two segments of three hours each during Saturday and Sunday 2 and 3 October. Approximately 70 people from more than 20 countries attended remotely, while seven delegates were present on site in Dubai.
On the agenda this time, there were two topics of a more general interest: ethical products and the use of draft standards.
Regarding ethical products, the main question was whether the CAB should make recommendations to the conformity assessment systems on the interpretation of the word ethical. This topic has been on the agenda before, and after a long discussion, the result was a reconfirmation of the earlier CAB decision that it is not up to the CAB to determine the ethicality of IEC standards or of products tested and certified against those standards.
The topic of using draft IEC International Standards, i.e. before the standards have been finally approved by the appropriate IEC members, for conformity assessment systems, also rendered a long and interesting discussion resulting in the creation of a special Task Force. This task force will investigate this matter further and report to the next CAB meeting.
In addition to these two topics, the four different conformity assessment systems gave their annual reports on their day-to-day business and the outcome of their respective yearly management meetings. The systems also reported their audited accounts for 2020. The CAB approved the reports along with new and revised operational documents and endorsed the appointed persons for the different functions.
More about the management structure of the IECEE can be found at https://www.iec.ch/management-structure
