Part 1: Dealing with complexities of worldwide regulatory compliance; beginning with EMC

There are many complexities associated with product regulatory compliance that negatively impact cost in terms of dollars and time to obtain worldwide country regulatory approvals. These complexities are made up of product configuration variations, types of regulatory approvals required, the number of test standards used and the number of countries with unique requirements. EMC is one of the most difficult of all these regulatory approvals required due to the number of standards and number of test methods involved. Recommendations are made to help reduce the negative impact of these complexities on the regulatory approval processes. These recommendations include functional structure of the regulatory group, software tools, setting up financial policies within the company of `who pays for what', and setting up metrics to measure efficiencies and reduce cost.