1. What if you are an ATEX certificate holder, but not an IECEx certificate holder?
From the previous posts, we now know that you could submit an IECEx certificate to obtain a KCs certificate. This is, in fact, nearly the only way of obtaining a KCs certificate if you are not based in S. Korea. Many European manufacturers often have their products ATEX certified only. So what about ATEX? We all know ATEX is nearly the same as IECEx, especially now that most of the IEC and the EN standards are harmonised. In this post, we are going to talk about submitting an ATEX certificate to obtain a KCs certificate.
2. ATEX certificates could be accepted, but not all ATEXs are acceptable.
In general, it is IECEx certificates only which are accepted for KCs certification. However, all local certification bodies in S. Korea have signed MoUs with other ATEX notified bodies. For this reason, if your ATEX certificate is issued by one of the ATEX notified bodies who signed a MoU with the Korea local certification body that you are contacting, then your ATEX would be accepted.
Different KCs bodies sign a MoU with different ATEX notified bodies, so you would have to check which ATEX notified body issued your ATEX certificate, and see which KCs body has a MoU signed with your ATEX notified body.
For example, if you obtained an ATEX certificate from TUV Nord, then KOSHA is the one who signed a MoU with TUV Nord, so you should go to KOSHA for KCs in this case.
3. Any difference between submitting IECEx and submitting ATEX?
It is still ideal to have an IECEx certificate for the equipment you are obtaining a KCs certificate for. Both IECEx certificate and ATEX certificate would waive testing, but the main difference is qualitiy assessment. With an IECEx, you could submit your IECEx QAR to get the initial quality assessment waived. This not only saves the cost, but also reduces turnaround time significantly. With an ATEX, this is not possible as ATEX QANs are not acceptable. The initial quality assessment would usually take 45 days to complete, so this could be a big deal in an urgent situation.
Another difference you should be aware of is that IECEx test reports have checklists for IEC standards while ATEX test reports may or may not have this. For ATEX certifications, some ATEX notified bodies do not have full checklists in the reports, so when you submit your ATEX report and the report does not have any checklists, then your ATEX certificate could be potentially turned down.
Any questions are welcome. If you have any, please send me an email (koreamarketaccess@gmail.com) or leave your question in the comment section of this post.
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