Newsletter

CECIP Newsletter Q3 2019

CECIP event: The European weighing industry in 2030

On Thursday 21 November CECIP will present its Vision 2030 during a dinner event in Brussels. At the event representatives from the European Commission, Member States and CECIP will present their view on the European weighing industry in 2030. Participants will join the discussions on several aspects of the CECIP Vision 2030 such as harmonisation, market surveillance and digitalisation. Speakers at the dinner include Mr Pettinelli (Director DG Grow European Commission), CECIP President Urs Widmer, CECIP Board member and managing partner of Espera Werke Marcus Korthäuer.

The dinner will take place at Club Royals des Guides in Brussels and starts at 18.45. All stakeholders and CECIP members are invited and can register via the following link: cecipvision2030.eventbrite.com

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.

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 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.

CECIP speaks at International Metrology Congress

CECIP gave a presentation at the International Metrology Congress (CIM) in Paris on 22 September. At this three-day event national authorities, international organisations and companies gave presentations on a wide range of topics related to metrology. On behalf of CECIP, Ian Turner (UKWF) had the opportunity to present the CECIP view on the new approach regarding software requirements during the opening session. This new approach would allow manufacturers to use a quality systems rather than a technical approval approach to software control and regulation. It would introduce a dynamic element to the process which would benefit the rapidly changing demands of the market.

As the ideas of the "metrology cloud" develop this would be a relevant and beneficial application for all stakeholders and CECIP hopes these ideas can be further developed and incorporated in to the metrology cloud and the relevant legislation and guides.