A Belgian developer of LED panels was in the dark about ‘CE marking’ his products until the Enterprise Europe Network enlightened him.
When Teddy Barbe lost his job in LED lighting applications a few years ago, he decided to go into business for himself. The Belgian entrepreneur had a lot of bright ideas for innovative new LED panels he wanted to design for use in lights, graphic displays, clocks and thermometers.
To sell his products anywhere in the EU, he knew that he had to comply with CE marking rules. The CE marking indicates that a product is assessed before being placed on the market and meets EU safety, health and environmental protection requirements.
For advice on what to do next he contacted the Enterprise Europe Network, whose 3,000 experts in more than 50 countries give advice and support to SMEs.
Hiring a consultant would have been too expensive, but a search led him to Pascal Verheye, a Brussels based Network expert with the Flemish public agency for entrepreneurs, Agentschap Ondernemen.
This situation was slightly complicated since the panels would be made of multiple components, each subject to different EU health, safety and environmental rules.
Verheye gathered all the relevant information, contacted the organisations in Belgium responsible for the CE checks, and put together a detailed file for the client. "We don't just forward the technical and complex material, he says, "we explain it in a way SMEs can understand."
Armed with the information, Barbe can now design LED panels with the CE requirements in mind. "The Network is a free service that helps you find practical solutions," he says.