Compliance Handbooks

Product compliance is rarely a single problem. It is a set of overlapping engineering disciplines, each with its own standards, testing protocols, deadlines, and failure modes. An engineer designing a mains-powered device faces electrical safety requirements, EMC obligations, thermal management constraints, and increasingly, cybersecurity mandates, often governed by different regulations that reference each other without ever fully aligning.

This section brings together Regulatory Decoded’s most complete resources on each of these disciplines. Each handbook covers a topic area across multiple articles, structured to take you from foundational understanding through to practical design and certification decisions. Whether you are starting from scratch on a new product or troubleshooting a certification failure, the handbooks below are designed to be useful at every stage of development.

Electrical Safety Compliance

The physics of electrical hazards, how standards classify and control them, and what engineers need to do at the design stage to pass certification reliably. Covers leakage current, HiPot testing, protective earth, thermal limits, and IEC 62368-1.

EMC Compliance

From the fundamentals of electromagnetic compatibility to the design decisions that determine whether a product passes its emission and immunity tests. Covers measurement uncertainty, ground plane discipline, and the interaction between EMC and electrical safety.

Product Risk Analysis

Risk analysis done properly is one of the most powerful tools in product development. This resource covers the strategic approach to risk assessment, FMEA, human factors, cognitive bias in safety decisions, and why compliance alone is not enough.

Cybersecurity

Two regulations with overlapping scope, staggered timelines, and significant consequences for product manufacturers. This resource maps the obligations under each, explains how they interact, and covers the technical requirements, SBOM, vulnerability reporting, AI risk classification, in detail.

Electrical Safety Compliance → The physics of electrical hazards, how standards classify and control them, and what engineers need to do at the design stage to pass certification reliably. Covers leakage current, HiPot testing, protective earth, thermal limits, and IEC 62368-1.

EMC Compliance → From the fundamentals of electromagnetic compatibility to the design decisions that determine whether a product passes its emission and immunity tests. Covers measurement uncertainty, ground plane discipline, and the interaction between EMC and electrical safety.

Product Risk Analysis → Risk analysis done properly is one of the most powerful tools in product development. Covers the strategic approach to risk assessment, FMEA, human factors, cognitive bias in safety decisions, and why compliance alone is not enough.

EU AI Act and Cyber Resilience Act → Two regulations with overlapping scope, staggered timelines, and significant consequences for product manufacturers. Maps the obligations under each, explains how they interact, and covers the technical requirements — SBOM, vulnerability reporting, AI risk classification — in detail.

Each handbook above is maintained and updated as the relevant standards and regulations evolve. Where regulations have been amended or new obligations have come into force, the affected articles are revised to reflect the current state. If you are working to a specific deadline — the CRA vulnerability reporting obligation in September 2026, or the EU AI Act high-risk obligations in August 2026 — the relevant handbook will tell you exactly where things stand.

For individual articles organised by publication date, see the Articles section. For practical tools including a free risk analysis template, see Useful Tools.