Industrial Control Panels (ICPs) are vital components that help enable equipment to be used safely and perform reliably. With the safety of workers, facilities, and surrounding communities at stake – as well as your customers’ vital needs for operating efficiency, reliability, and business continuity – compliance with ICP safety requirements is critical throughout your product lifecycle.

But what is the best way to confirm your ICP products conform with all applicable North American safety requirements? There is no single answer.  You have multiple options available to confirm compliance with safety requirements. By understanding your options, you’ll be able to choose the one that best supports the way you produce and deliver panels to market, increasing your flexibility, cost-efficiency, and speed-to-market.

This ICP Evaluation Guide Explains How

Recognizing the unique challenges and business models in the industry, our ICP evaluation team has outlined all of the evaluation options in a comprehensive guide to help you choose the best model to support your business.

Also covered are key North American safety requirements and the unique role U.S. and Canadian Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJs) play in approving installed panels for start-up. Whether you produce panels for North America today, or are just entering the market, the information and insight in this paper can help you optimize the way you confirm safety compliance.

Identifying the Best Option

Leading ICP compliance evaluation organizations like CSA Group have developed a range of options to serve widely varied ICP manufacturing business models. These include on-site compliance evaluations for individual products, evaluations at your production facility or in an independent testing laboratory, evaluations for limited production runs or for intermittent production of panels as they are ordered, evaluations for mass production of ICPs of a fixed design, and more.

Bottom line, you have a wide range of options to choose from, one of which can offer the flexibility and cost-efficiency your business requires.

ICP Safety Requirements for North America are Unique

Of course, getting compliance right is not optional. There is no substitute for in-depth and up-to-date knowledge of, and experience with, all the North American safety requirements your products must meet. And those requirements are uniquely complex.

Your evaluation program will have to confirm ICPs conform with the requirements of specific U.S. and/or Canadian safety standards depending on where the panels will be installed. The type of installation also makes a difference. ICPs for hazardous locations must meet the same safety requirements as panels for ordinary locations, plus additional requirements to manage the potential for ignition caused by an electrical spark in an explosive atmosphere. The components you use in the construction of your ICPs must also be tested and certified for compliance with applicable component safety standards.

Finally, depending on where they will be installed, your panels will have to meet the specific installation safety requirements of the U.S. and/or Canadian national electrical codes. Approval isn’t final until compliance is confirmed by Authorities Having Jurisdiction at the point of installation.

On-time start-up of your customer’s equipment or system is important, so understanding the applicable requirements and the evaluation options is necessary to help you succeed in the final on-site inspection.

CSA Group has the Expertise and Options You Need   

Understanding and properly applying the North American requirements can be challenging. CSA Group has the expertise needed to ensure compliance, increase your flexibility, efficiency and predictability, and reduce wasteful expense across your product’s lifecycle.

We are a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL) in the U.S. and we are accredited by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) to conduct testing and certification for the Canadian market. Our full range of ICP evaluation programs include:

• Model Certification
• Special Industrial Control Panel Program (SICP)
• Special Industrial Control Panel Program for Hazardous Locations (SICPHL)
• Field Evaluation
• Field Certification

We can tailor the precise solution you need to effectively confirm compliance and efficiently support your business.

Get up to speed on your ICP safety evaluation options in “Exploring Your Options for Industrial Control Panel Safety Evaluation in North America”.