by Amy Lyons » Fri Apr 12, 2013 12:41 pm
Hi All
Apologies for not replying sooner.
Duff1, The CoP 4th Ed states that "Any risk based assessments are the responsibility of the duty-holder....A duty-holder may enlist the services of a competent person to assist in this process." The Apollo 600 and PATGuard 3 both have the facility to determine retest periods via risk assessment. This works by taking factors such as equipment type, user, and frequency of use into account to determine whether the appliance is low or high risk and then calculating retest periods for formal visual and full test accordingly using Table 7.1 as a base. This facility can be used by the duty holder, or the competent person they enlist, to determine the retest periods prior to, during or after testing.
Safe+sound, Please see our blog entry at the below link with regards to putting retest periods on labels. This should hopefully answer some of your questions.
http://apollo600.seaward.co.uk/blog/
Terry, there is no industry standard way to risk assess but there is an ISO standard on Risk Management. This states that "risk management should be tailored to be aligned with the organisations external and internal context and risk profile." In Apollo 600 and PATGuard 3 we have tried to use a method of risk assessment for both electrical appliances and other assets, activities and locations which can be used in accordance with this ideal.
I hope I have answered as much as possible here but please let me know if I have missed anything or if you would like any further information.
Thanks and kind regards
Amy Lyons
Applications Engineer
Test & Measurement Division
Seaward Electronic