Lloyd’s Register launches an all-new mobile application for the Pressure Equipment Directive (EU directive 97/23/EC).
Available from today, a new Pressure Equipment Directive (PED) Category Selection calculator app will provide manufacturers with instant access to customized information about the EU directive. The app also helps facilitate engineering calculations with graphical illustrations to better understand how to obtain CE marking for their products.
Pascal Coudeville, SVP of Lloyd’s Register’s Inspection business said: “This mobile app is in line with Lloyd’s Register’s mission to provide value to society by helping ensure the safety of high-risk assets. We’re providing industry with an easy-to-understand process to meet a critical safety standard.”
With the choice of four languages – English, Dutch, Spanish and Mandarin – the app makes the EC directive information accessible to a global audience.
“Navigating the PED process can be confusing for global manufacturers, ” highlighted Coudeville. “Now they have a user-friendly tool that helps sort through technical requirements and points out where they need the aid of a notified body for certification, such as Lloyd’s Register.”
Designed with busy engineers and surveyors in mind, the new app is an extension of Lloyd’s Register’s popular desktop PED category selection calculator that has been downloaded thousands of times since it was introduced in 2004.
“At Lloyd’s Register we have an on-going commitment to make the availability of information and guidance around directives easier, faster and more interactive, ” said Robin Pickup, VP of Industry for Lloyd’s Register. “This new PED app gives manufacturers real-time flexibility to assess which part of the directive is applicable to their equipment and what they need to do by pressing a few virtual buttons on their smartphones or tablet.”
The Lloyd’s Register PED app also includes images and illustrations making sure users see more of what they need to know and less of what they don’t.
Jason Knights, Global Communications Manager at Lloyd’s Register commented: “Why are companies willing to risk their reputation, money and time using outdated methods to find information? The data from the PED calculator is far too important to leave it on Excel or Word documents stored in a filing cabinet somewhere. Companies want answers fast and the data accessible right away – eliminating guesswork.”
Knights highlighted: “Regulatory authorities want to see that companies are well organised and using the right tools when it comes to designing and manufacturing equipment and assemblies in one part of the world which are destined for use in other parts of the world. Our new PED app is a solution for manufacturers wanting to manufacture pressure equipment for use in the European market.”
The app has been produced to support the Lloyd’s Register brand’s technical innovation. It coincides with the company’s recent launch of a new software innovation for operators in the oil and gas sector, where work with leading drilling and operating companies in the Gulf of Mexico led to improving methods of modelling performance and assessing the risks related to the industry’s most safety-critical piece of equipment, the Blowout Preventer (BOP).
Lloyd’s Register plans to add more languages to the PED app over the coming months and is already planning the launch of a series of new apps later this year and in 2014, designed to help companies and their employees operating in the energy sector with guidance and real-time tools.
The Lloyd’s Register PED app is free to download and use, and is available for Apple devices as well as Android smartphones and tablets in the Apple App Store and Google Play. It is for use in the US, Asia and across Europe.
Lloyd’s Register Group Ltd, owned by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a UK-registered charity, has a mandate to provide public-benefit and take responsibility to ensure that its clients have the technical support and regulatory knowledge to build and operate critical infrastructure safely and efficiently.
Lloyd’s Register is a Notified Body for the Pressure Equipment Directive (PED). The certification authority covers all aspects of the PED conformity modules, including:
· Product inspection, testing and certification
· Material approval
· Design examination
· Type examination
· Quality system approval
· Approval of joining personnel and procedures
The Pressure Equipment Directive (PED) applies to you if you design or manufacture certain types of pressure equipment which is placed on the market within the European Economic Area.
The Pressure Equipment Directive covers the design, manufacture and conformity assessment of pressure equipment and assemblies with a maximum allowable pressure PS greater than 0.5 bar.
Pressure equipment must meet the essential safety requirements set out in the PED. Depending on the type of equipment – its pressure rating, volume or fluid content, and potential hazards – manufacturers may select a procedure from a range of conformity modules, which include:
· Manufacturers self-certification
· Third-party type examination or design examination
· Third-party inspection
· Quality management system certification
This PED Category Selection app is intended to assist clients and manufacturers in determining which conformity modules apply to the pressure equipment. This helps determine the options for PED certification.
The Pressure Equipment Directive (97/23/EC) was adopted by the European Parliament and the European Council in May 1997. It initially came into force on 29 November 1999. From that date until 29 May 2002 manufacturers had a choice between applying the pressure equipment directive or continuing with the application of the existing national legislation. From 30 May 2002 the pressure equipment directive is obligatory throughout the EU.
The Directive provides, together with the directives related to simple pressure vessels (2009/105/EC), transportable pressure equipment (99/36/EC) and Aerosol Dispensers (75/324/EEC), for an adequate legislative framework on European level for equipment subject to a pressure hazard.
The Directive concerns items such as vessels, pressurised storage containers, heat exchangers, steam generators, boilers, industrial piping, safety devices and pressure accessories. Such pressure equipment is widely used in the process industries (oil & gas, chemical, pharmaceutical, plastics and rubber and the food and beverage industry), high temperature process industry (glass, paper and board), energy production and in the supply of utilities, heating, air conditioning and gas storage and transportation.
For more information on the Pressure Equipment Directive: http://www.lr.org/compliance/directives/171816-PressureEquipmentDirective.aspx
www.lr.org
‘Lloyd’s Register’ is a trading name of Lloyd’s Register Group Limited and its subsidiaries. For further details, see www.lr.org/entities.
