BOXBOROUGH, MA — In what is expected to help North American gas detector manufacturers dramatically reduce their time to market, TUV Rheinland of North America has announced that it will now offer IEC 60079-29-1 certification services.

Currently, the typical turn-around testing period offered by other U.S. suppliers of such certification services takes four to six months. TÜV Rheinland expects to be able to complete most testing within a two- to four-week period.

“TÜV Rheinland has an established history and reputation in North America in the areas of Functional Safety (FS) and hazardous locations (HazLoc) certification services, but we’ve never really offered flammable gas detector certification on this continent,” said Paul Silva, the company’s FS/HazLoc team leader. “However, after hearing from customers how frustrated they were trying to get their products certified to IEC/EN 60079-29-1 and knowing that our German lab in Cologne could make this happen in as little as one-fifth the time, including shipping to Germany, we felt it was incumbent upon us to add this service to our North America portfolio.”

For more information, visit www.tuv.com/us.