A medium-sized industrial machinery manufacturer was expanding its product range into the EU market and needed to establish an in-house sound power measurement capability for CE marking compliance testing. Previously, sound power testing had been outsourced to a test laboratory, which was adequate for a small number of product variants but had become a bottleneck as the product range expanded. The manufacturer needed to bring sound power testing in-house, conducting ISO 3744 measurements on their production floor.
The primary challenge was that the manufacturer's production floor had not previously been qualified as a measurement environment. ISO 3744 specifies environment qualification criteria based on background noise levels and environmental correction factors K1 and K2. The PLACID team conducted a pre-installation site assessment to verify that the production floor met ISO 3744 qualification requirements during quiet production periods, and selected the appropriate measurement surface radius based on the source dimensions.
The complete system was commissioned, site-qualified per ISO 3744, and measurement operators trained within the agreed 8-week schedule. The first batch of sound power declarations produced expanded measurement uncertainty U = 1.2 dB (k = 2), which met the requirement for CE marking documentation under the Machinery Directive. The manufacturer now conducts in-house ISO 3744 testing for all product variants, with test reports citing the PLACID calibration documentation and accreditation scope.