Standardization for Defence Procurement - European Handbook, recommendations Electromagnetic Environmental Effects

The European Commission (EC) would like to improve the competitiveness of the European Defence Industry. The large number of (national) standards, more than 10.000, is recognised by EC as a major constraint and cost driver [1]. Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) and more generally Electromagnetic Environmental Effects (EEE) have been considered by the EC as a major topic, with 7 other topics such as NBC detectors, energetic materials, fuels and lubricants, batteries, packaging, electrical and mechanical interfaces, and environmental testing. An EEE expert group (called Expert group 7 or EG7) with representatives from industry and national Ministries of Defence rationalised in 2004 a list of 329 EEE standards, implicitly abandoning national, including American, standards, and develop guidelines for the procurement process. A limited number of widely accepted and cost effective standards, suitable for use by MoD’s (acquisition) and industry (product development), has been defined after making comparisons. It was decided that the best references is the NATO STANAG 4370 series [2]. Comparisons were carried out on some standards against this STANAG 4370 AECTP 500. The EEE Expert Group (EG7) concluded; • that no one standard is better or worse than another in achieving the end goal • there are sufficient similarities to AECTP 500 to adopt this as the fundamental replacement standard. • there is sufficient agreement on NATO-, IEC- and EN-produced standards to make worthwhile agreement to use a number of standards as replacement for some (or some parts) of existing National Standards. This paper, presents the work conducted by EG7 focusing on its recommendations on the use of EEE standards, and on the constraints with respect to the standardisation process of National MoD’s, NATO, Industry and EN/IEC.