Compliance as questions, not as claims
Compliance, on this site, is handled entirely as a set of questions, and this page is the place where those questions are listed. It does not state that any product, shipment, or operation complies with any requirement, in any place, because no such finding is published here. A reader who is looking for a compliance statement will not find one on this page, and should not read any other page on this site as supplying one either, because the site as a whole makes no compliance claim.
Compliance depends on the place of work, the requirement concerned, and the particular order, and none of those can be settled by a general page. Name the place, the requirement, and the order in the inquiry, and ask what can be provided for that combination. A general page that stated compliance would be answering a question that depends on particulars it does not contain, and the answer would therefore be unreliable for any particular case. Listing the questions instead lets a buyer ask them for the particular place and requirement concerned.
Questions to ask about local requirements
An inquiry on compliance should name the place of work, the requirement concerned, and the product and order to which the requirement should apply, in that order. It should ask what, if anything, the company can provide for that combination, and in what form it can be provided. It should avoid asking whether a product complies in general, because a general question invites a general answer, and a general answer cannot be checked against a particular place or requirement.
An inquiry should also ask about documents in the same message, naming the purpose for which any document is needed. Certificates are available upon request, and a request that names its purpose will be answered more precisely than a general request. If a document is needed for an approval in a particular place, that place and that approval should be named in the inquiry, so that the reply can be checked against them.
Checking a compliance reply
When a reply arrives, check it against the place, requirement, and order named in the inquiry. If the reply speaks in general terms, ask whether it applies to the place and requirement named, and in what form that application can be shown. If the reply provides a document, check the document against the inquiry: the product named, the purpose named, and the coverage shown on the document itself. If any of those do not match, ask about the mismatch before relying on the document.
A compliance reply should also be checked for scope: does it cover the order described, or does it cover the company, a product line, or a different order? A reply that covers a wider scope than the inquiry asked about is not necessarily wrong, but it should be queried, because its wider scope may hide a gap for the particular order. A short follow-up question about scope usually settles the matter, and it keeps the record clear.
Compliance questions that stay questions
A compliance question stays a question when it is written as one, with the place, the requirement, and the order all named, and it becomes a claim when any of those particulars is dropped and the question is stated in general terms. The difference matters, because a general compliance question invites a general answer, and a general answer can easily be read as a statement that something complies, when it was only ever a question about whether it does. Keeping the particulars attached is therefore not a formality; it is what keeps a question from turning into an unintended claim.
That discipline applies to replies as well as to inquiries. A reply that answers a compliance question in general terms should be queried for its application to the place and requirement named, before it is relied on. A reply that answers for the particular place and requirement, with a document whose coverage matches the inquiry, can be relied on to the extent that the document itself supports. The check is simple, but it prevents the commonest compliance misunderstanding, which is to treat a general answer as a particular one.
To ask about this page, use the inquiry form to name the ore, the process step, and the question, and ask what information is needed next.