Here’s a CE Mark fact that occasionally causes an engineer to stare suspiciously at us for a few seconds:

For most machinery, nobody “gives” you the CE Mark.

Yep.

There isn’t a mysterious CE headquarters in Brussels where a stern engineer examines your machine, stamps a giant APPROVED across the paperwork, and ceremoniously hands you permission to apply those famous two letters.

For many types of machinery, CE marking is based on manufacturer self-declaration.

But before anyone reaches for a CE sticker and starts celebrating, there’s a pretty important catch.

Self-declaration does not mean:

“We looked at the machine. Seems fine. Slap the CE Mark on it.”

The manufacturer has to determine which European Union requirements apply, evaluate the equipment against those requirements, address applicable hazards, compile the required technical documentation, and complete the appropriate Declaration of Conformity before placing the equipment on the EU market.

Depending on the machine, that can mean evaluating everything from electrical safety and machine guarding to EMC, control systems, emergency stops, documentation, and risk reduction.

That’s where a CE Mark evaluation gets interesting.

One machine might involve several pieces of EU legislation and numerous harmonized standards. Change the machine significantly, add a new subsystem, or modify its intended use and suddenly the compliance puzzle may need another look.

So this week’s Random Engineering Fact is:

The CE Mark usually isn’t someone else’s stamp of approval. It’s the manufacturer’s declaration that the applicable European compliance requirements have been satisfied.

Those two little letters carry quite a résumé.

And suddenly that tiny CE logo on the side of a machine looks a whole lot more interesting.

Random Engineering Fact accomplished.

See you next week when we dig through engineering’s enormous junk drawer and pull out another surprisingly useful fact.