What Quality and Safety Standards Do FORTEC Monitors Meet?
October 5, 2015
Two standards matter most: ISO 9001 for quality management and EN 62368-1 for product safety. At FORTEC US, design and development, VacuBond® optical bonding, touch integration and production all happen at our facility in Ronkonkoma, New York, under one ISO 9001:2015 registered quality system (Certificate No. US3606). The monitors built by FORTEC Integrated, our sister company in Germany, are tested to EN 62368-1, the European hazard-based safety standard for audio, video and information technology equipment.
Which FORTEC companies are ISO 9001 certified?
FORTEC US and FORTEC Integrated each hold their own ISO 9001 certification within the FORTEC Group. Ours is ISO 9001:2015, Certificate No. US3606, covering the work we do in Ronkonkoma. FORTEC Integrated’s headquarters in Germering passed its three-yearly ISO 9001 recertification in September 2015, under the 2008 edition of the standard then in force, and its site in Eisenach received its first certification the same year. ISO 9001 is the most widely used quality management standard, nationally and internationally, and FORTEC Integrated described its certification as confirming its work to make operational processes more transparent and to keep improving quality.
What does EN 62368-1 require of a monitor?
It requires the manufacturer to identify and classify every hazardous energy source in the device and take protective measures against it. EN 62368-1 is built on Hazard Based Safety Engineering (HBSE). The standards it replaced, EN 60950-1 and EN 60065, focused on proving that prescribed specifications were met. EN 62368-1 looks at the risk of injury or fire caused by energy transfer, in normal operation and in the event of a fault, and requires suitable safety measures for both.
The standard applies to audio, video, information and communication technology equipment up to a nominal voltage of 600 V, which includes industrial monitors. In Europe it replaced the two earlier standards on Dec 20, 2020, after which only monitors that comply may be sold there. FORTEC Integrated prepared early: by August 2020, all the monitors it was producing were already tested to EN 62368-1, and supplier products were being changed to match.
What is pre-aging, and why test displays in heat?
Pre-aging exposes a display module to controlled heat so that weak points show up under simulated strain before the product reaches the field. In 2017, FORTEC Integrated installed industrial heating cabinets in its production to offer logged tempering and pre-aging. Software-controlled temperature programs expose modules up to 21.5 inches (54.51 cm) diagonal to temperatures from +30 to +300°C (86 to 572°F), including long-term programs and experiments running over several days, and test a product against the customer’s own temperature requirements.
Does a supplier’s financial strength affect supply?
Yes, because sound finances pay for stock and for new development. In 2015, the Deutsche Bundesbank again confirmed FORTEC Integrated’s eligibility: its credit rating was good enough for banks to use claims on the company as security for their own borrowing from the Bundesbank. That financial footing let FORTEC Integrated keep investing in new technologies and keep a large stock for its customers.
Which certifications does your end device need?
That depends on the device and its markets, and we handle various tests and certifications for your end device, such as CE certification, as part of our technical services. Material compliance is part of the same conversation: RoHS, REACH, Conflict Minerals, Proposition 65 and PFAS declarations are available on request, as our guide to the compliance documents an OEM needs from its display and embedded suppliers explains.
Tell us where your design has to work and which markets it ships to, and we will take it from there. We recommend the right combination of display, computer and power, handle the integration and the sourcing, and stay with the project from first samples to series production. Contact FORTEC US.
