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Product Safety & Compliance
A legacy of building safety into our products for generations.
In 1970, Tennant Company formed its Product Safety Council to add an additional level of rigour to our product design/review process to ensure we provide our customers with the safest products in the industry. This cross-functional group performs product safety reviews, with its focus on protecting our users from accidents associated with Tennant products. Tennant engineers and managers also participate in the development of safety standards in the U.S. and Europe. These standards are now international. Tennant’s foresight meshes seamlessly with today’s regulated, risk-based product markets across the globe. Additionally, Tennant incorporates feedback from the assembly team to the service team, as well as from customers, to make our products safer by continuously improving our designs.
Product safety affects customers, operators, transporters, service personnel, recyclers and bystanders. In constructing its robust product safety program, Tennant adopted the Essential Health and Safety Requirements established by the European Union's Machinery Directive (2006/42/EC) as foundational. The intent behind the Machinery Directive is to design and construct safe machines that can be used, configured and maintained throughout all phases of their life, minimising risk to people and the environment.
- Product Safety Policy
- Product Safety Resources
- Development & Testing
- Customer Experience
- Responsible Sourcing & Transparency
- Waste & Recycling
Product Safety Policy
Tennant Company commits to provide customers with safe products by:
- applying rigorous product research, development and design that meets or exceeds applicable safety standards and regulations, and by testing to validate design safety objectives;
- maintaining purchasing, production and quality control procedures to manufacture products that achieve design safety objectives;
- identifying hazards, via cross-functional teams, which can be generated when using Tennant products and mitigating the resultant risks by:
- estimating and evaluating the risks to determine required risk reduction;
- implementing inherently safe design measures to eliminate hazards where possible;
- applying technical protective measures to minimise exposure to hazards; and
- providing appropriate warning labels and other markings on products in an effort to minimise the risks of misuse and negligent behaviour in accordance with applicable regulations;
- using accurate, concise and clear statements in product advertising and selling efforts;
- educating customers about the safe operation and use of Tennant products and responding promptly to customer inquiries; and
- continuing to develop and monitor advancing technology in the field of safety and incorporating applicable safety devices into our products when proven reliable and practical.
Product Safety Resources
Safety Data
Sheets
Operator & Parts
Manuals
Quality
Policy
Tennant Company is committed to exceeding customer expectations and to meeting regulatory and quality management system requirements. All employees are dedicated to continuous innovation and improvement in all aspects of our business. Revered for its legacy of quality management, Tennant company and its employees are unwavering in sustainment of this policy.
Development & Testing
Test & Assessments
Tennant Company is ISO 9001 certified. As described in the European Union’s Machinery Directive (2006/42/EC), and as required as part of third-party factory surveillance when receiving approval to apply a Nationally Recognised Test Lab or Notified Body Mark on a Tennant machine, the manufacturer is required to operate a Quality Management System (QMS) to prove design, manufacture, final inspection and test is always done according to documented processes and is kept current. The QMS must be formally reviewed at regular intervals by a notified body to ensure the manufacturer is maintaining and applying the quality system.
PRODUCT SAFETY TESTING
Tennant Company has long been directly involved in the development and application of product safety standards for the cleaning industry, which can be found in the IEC-60335-2 series. Each product sold by Tennant is tested to the applicable standard based on machine type. These standards are developed under the direction of Technical Committee 61 in the International Electric Commission, specifically Sub Committee 61J. Tennant is represented at the national committee level by the United States, the Netherlands and Italy on the IEC committees. Additionally, a Tennant employee currently holds the Chairperson position for Sub Committee 61J.
Operator Health & Safety
ERGONOMICS
The Tennant Company design team begins every project with the operator in mind. Examples of operator considerations include: operator and bystander safety, how the product will be used, easy access to machine controls, operator sightlines around the machine, forces required to actuate controls and access machine components for use and maintenance, and headroom/legroom for the operator. These factors, and many others, are thoroughly studied to make our equipment intuitive, safe and comfortable to use for extended periods of time.
To guide our operator focus, development teams leverage international standards such as those from the International Organization for Standardization. This information provides essential human body measurements for various global populations across genders and size ranges from the 5th to 95th percentile individuals. In addition to these measurements, best practices have been devised for many common user interfaces. These include actuation forces, seated occupant geometry and recommendations for size and contrast of displays. Together, the application of these measurements and recommendations allows Tennant to create products that are easy-to-use, reduce fatigue and make the work our customers do more enjoyable.
NOISE/SOUND & VIBRATION
Operators enjoy the benefit of years of Tennant Company’s design and standards-focus on audible noise and vibration level reduction. Our machines are best-in-class in this regard. Additionally, each machine meets the requirements specified in the IEC 60335-2 series of standards for audible noise and for vibration. These parameters are listed in the machine specifications, as required, in the operator manual.
Customer Experience
Customer Training
Operator Training
Videos
Best Practices -
Tennant Blog
Health & Safety -
Tennant Blog
Responsible Sourcing & Transparency
Tennant Company is committed to ethical business practices, which is why we maintain transparency throughout our supply chain and work with our suppliers on responsible sourcing. Tennant uses a supplier agreement that requires its direct suppliers to comply with all applicable laws and regulations and with Tennant’s Supplier Core Expectations, which include the expectation that they will comply with Tennant’s high ethical standards. Tennant’s dedication to responsible sourcing and transparency is foundational to the way we do business.
CONFLICT MINERALS POLICY
RESPONSIBLE MINERALS INITIATIVE
Tennant Company is an active member of the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) and has served on a Smelter Engagement Team responsible for auditing gold smelters in Brazil for conformance to the Responsible Minerals Assurance Process (RMAP).
REACH
REACH (EC 1907/2006) is the European Regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals. It became effective in 2007, replacing previous legislation for chemicals in the European Union (EU). REACH is a regulation that was created to improve the protection of human health and the environment from risks posed by chemicals, while at the same time increasing the competitiveness of the EU chemicals industry. REACH also encourages alternative approaches for the hazard assessment of substances to decrease the number of tests on animals.
Tennant undertakes supply chain engagement to obtain the appropriate information to meet the communication obligations of the REACH Regulation. Under REACH Article 33(1), companies placing product on the market in the European Economic Area are required to communicate SVHCs contained in articles over 0.1% weight over weight (w/w) from the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) Candidate list of Substances of Very High Concern for Authorisation (Candidate SVHC) list and necessary safe use information.
Tennant Company is in scope of the European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Regulation (EC) 1907/2006. We are committed to demonstrating the fulfillment of due diligence for communicating downstream Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC). Tennant will provide a Declaration of Conformity in accordance with Article 33 of the Regulation through our regular supplier engagement.
ROHS
The Restriction of Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (RoHS) is a European Union (EU) Directive which aims to protect the environment and public health. RoHS was created in response to the rise in the production and use of electrical and electronic equipment (‘EEE’), which has resulted in an escalating quantity of electrical and electronic waste. During the use, collection, treatment and disposal of such waste, products may release harmful substances, which can cause serious environmental and health problems.
RoHS 2 refers to Directive 2011/65/EU, which replaced the first RoHS Directive 2002/95/EC (RoHS 1) and entered into force on 21 July 2011. This update promotes the recyclability of EEE and ensures a level playing field for manufacturers and importers of EEE in the European market.
Like RoHS 1, RoHS 2 restricts the use of certain hazardous substances (lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls, polybrominated diphenyl ethers) in EEE. Compared to RoHS 1, RoHS 2 not only expanded the scope of products covered, but also imposed new obligations on EEE manufacturers to prepare EU declarations of conformity and affix CE markings on finished products.
RoHS 1 and 2 mandate that electrical and electronic products must not contain more than 0.1% (except for cadmium which is limited to 0.01%) by weight of homogeneous material of any listed substances. Homogeneous material means a material that cannot be mechanically disjoined into different materials.
Tennant is committed to the reduction of hazardous substances entering the environment through EEE. To this end, Tennant confirms its compliance with 2011/65/EU for all applicable products.
CALIFORNIA TRANSPARENCY IN SUPPLY CHAIN ACT
UK MODERN SLAVERY ACT
Waste & Recycling
WASTE FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE
Waste Framework Directive (WFD): Directive 2008/98/EC establishes a legal framework for treating waste in the European Economic Area. It establishes measures to protect the environment and human health by preventing or reducing the adverse impacts of waste, to emphasise the importance of sound waste management and to encourage efficient use of resources. It provides a waste hierarchy – a priority order in waste management legislation and policy:
- Prevention
- Re-use
- Recycling
- Recovery (such as energy)
- Disposal
Directive (EU) 2018/851 amended Directive 2008/98/EC to establish re-use and recycling targets and improve systems, to establish exemptions for separation of waste collection and to outline mandatory requirements for a centralised Substances of Concern in Products (SCIP) database, governed by the European Chemical Agency (ECHA).
Tennant Company is in scope of the WFD, which since 5 January 2021, has required companies producing, importing or distributing articles containing SVHCs above a 0.1 percent weight over weight (w/w) threshold to submit detailed dossiers to the SCIP database. Each individual article, including complex objects made up of two or more articles, must have its own dossier. This represents a substantial effort for companies manufacturing products with multiple components containing SVHCs.
Tennant is committed to achieving and maintaining compliance with the WFD. We have partnered with Assent Compliance to assist in managing our REACH and WFD programs, to keep them current to the SVHC list as it is updated and to properly reflect changes to our products in the SCIP database.
WEEE
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) (WEEE 1: 2002/96/EC and WEEE 2: 2012/19/EC) Directive is a European Union (EU) directive that seeks to contribute to sustainable production and consumption. The WEEE Directive addresses environmental and other issues caused by the increasing number of discarded electronics in the EU. The purpose of the WEEE Directive is to: (1) prevent the creation of WEEE; and (2) contribute to the efficient use of resources and the retrieval of secondary raw materials through re-use, recycling and other forms of recovery.
To meet these goals, the WEEE Directive:
- calls for the separate collection and appropriate treatment of WEEE and sets targets for their collection, recovery and recycling.
- assists European countries to fight illegal waste exports more efficiently by making it harder for exporters to disguise illegal shipments of WEEE.
- lessens the administrative responsibility by calling for the harmonisation of national EEE registers and the reporting format.
Tennant Company is committed to the WEEE Directive’s mission to contribute to sustainable production and consumption. To this end, Tennant confirms its compliance with 2012/19/EU for all applicable products, including registration in all required countries in the European Union.
