What is Type Approval?
Weighing instruments that are used for legal or controlled applications are required to meet various legal requirements of the relevant EU directives and the associated UK Regulations.
Examples of legal and controlled applications: Medical weighing (e.g. where a person’s weight could affect a prescribed drug or a procedure), Selling anything based on its weight (e.g. shops or production sites that are sampling a product to be sold), Legal testing (e.g. Blood, alcohol or drug testing).
‘Under the NAWI and Measuring Instruments Directives, EC-Type examination certificates can only be issued by Notified Bodies who have been designated in their Member State for this task. The National Measurement Office (NMO) is the designated Notified Body in the UK for issuing EC TACs for both non-automatic and automatic weighing instruments. Member States of the EC are obliged to accept type-approval certificates issued by Notified Bodies of other Member States.’ [UK Weighing Federation]
The Type Approval confirms that the item or type of machine conforms to the relevant regulation. All equipment with a Type Approval will be classified as either class I, class II, Class III or class IV. The classification relates to the accuracy of the weighing instrument/s.