I wrote a note about it some time ago, see here . It appears, the regulatory industrial product approval "game" is still spreading like a disease, worldwide, where the winners are certification consultants and the losers are everyone else. It seems to be unstoppable except for some of the most eager adopters going out of business sooner than the rest of them, so there may be some hope.
The key-word here is "moderation". Nobody advocates returning to the 19-th century industrial practices of producing unsafe consumer appliances such as gasoline-fueled irons ("Burn Down Your House" model 1900) or "Coffe-Cutor" heater . But, in my humble opinion, things have gone too far following a general profitable (to them) tendency of our left-leaning decision makers and politicians to legislate all risk out of life.
Adoption of excessive regulatory certification is imposing a requirement to re-approve every product each time one makes a model upgrade or a change. This is resulting in increasing the cost of doing business in manufacturing! Especially in the countries like Canada, US and Europe where the cost of doing business is already very high. The natural response of management against rising costs is shifting production to cheaper countries, resulting in the loss of manufacturing jobs and stagnant economies with careers opportunities eventually limited to firefighters, cops and a certain old profession ... 8-:)
