The biggest impact that the New Approach Directives have had is to create the largest trading bloc in existence, making the rest of the world consider Europe as an integral whole. For a company to trade with Europe, they have to deal with the community requirements, and that can only be a good thing for Europe as a whole.

One of the major implications of the 10th anniversary of the Machinery Directive is that there is likely to be machinery in use that was CE Marked in 1995 and hasn't been looked at since. It has always been considered that a Technical File should be stored for up to 10 years, but what of the machinery covered by the file? Have any modifications been made? Have any elements been upgraded? Is maintenance carried out regularly?

These and many more other questions need to be asked about any machinery that is currently in use. The longer it is in use, then the more pertinent the questions are. It is very feasible that machinery has been used for the last 10 years without any re-inspection either to PUWER (Work Equipment Directive) or to the Machinery Directive itself.

What to do
If you have machinery in use that was CE Marked over four years ago, it is advisable to reassess it, taking into account any reconditioning, maintenance and refurbishment that may have taken place. If any of these are likely to have changed the functionality of the machine, then you will probably have to re-CE Mark the machine. Has the machine been moved or are you likely to be moving any machinery? Make sure you assess to PUWER first, which in turn will give you pointers towards other hazards that may occur.

The issue to consider is that of 'due diligence'. Do you diligently consider safety and compliance issues? Or are they left for someone else? Safety and compliance is an on going process that can at times be affected by seemingly unrelated occurrences.