Management Board

Unconfirmed Minutes from the last Management Board meeting, held on 3rd February 2010 are available to CEC Group members on the CEC Web Site.

Effects of Biodiesel Test, Using the Daimler OM646LA Engine

Here is an update on the progress made so far on the new Biodiesel Test.
The tender document was published just before Christmas and an invitation to sponsor extended.  Three bids were received to develop the test, along with a lot of sponsorship interest.  The bids were evaluated in detail and the decision was made to appoint APL GmbH, Landau, as the test development laboratory.  Board Members confirmed their support of Mr. Joachim Vetter as the Chairman of TDG-L-104, as proposed by APL, subject to the sponsors’ approval.  
Sponsors will each pay Euro 45,000 each and any funds remaining at the end of the test development will be returned to sponsors in equal parts.
The Board is grateful for ongoing support from CONCAWE in the provision of fuels advice to this lubricants test.
Invoices and Letters of Intent have, in the most part, been dispatched to sponsoring companies, so that sponsor payments will be received and administration completed prior to the first meeting of the Group to be held in Brussels on Friday 12th March 2010. The Group has been given the designationTDG-L-104.
The Group will develop a tender document for the supply of reference fuels, which will be sent to the Management Board for their input prior to it being issued.  The Group will analyse the bids received and make their recommendations to the Board about the Reference Fuel supplier.

SG-F-098 – DW10

The Group has taken a proactive approach to investigating the shift in severity.
Members of the Group have decided to use some of the funds held by CEC from sales of licenses to use the test, to investigate the effect of injection timing on test severity.

SG-F-023 – XUD9

The last Progress Report from the Group highlighted some precision issues.  
It has since been established that one laboratory has not been complying with the test procedure and two others are significantly deviating from the test procedure.  The precision data is being re-calculated excluding these three laboratory results, which should improve results significantly.  In addition there are recent problems with injectors becoming off-spec after only a few tests.  It is understood that the future of this test will be the subject of discussion in Industry.

SG-F-016 – VW Waterboxer

VW no longer supplies parts for this test.
Parts are obtained from the aftermarket. Industry is considering whether or not to develop a new valve stick test to replace it.

Reference Oils

An incident has been reported by the Reference Oils Group about the incorrect labelling of a reference oil.  CEC procedures should not interfere with a commercial transaction between a reference oil stockist and the purchaser of the reference oil.  The CEC Board does have responsibility for maintaining the overall quality of CEC procedures and so has asked the ROG to complete some guidance notes for test labs and make some investigations with the stockists and then report back.

CEC Quality

Please read here about various CEC quality issues:
1.  Test Parameters Where Reference Oils Do Not Discriminate
A presentation was made to the Board by ATC representatives about how these parameters might be included within the CEC quality system for the purpose of setting safety limits.  This presentation is also being shown to Industry representatives for their views.  Board Members agreed to ask SDG to define a methodology by which safety limits could be set.

2.  Improvements to CEC Test Methods.  
2.1.  The various types of parameters reported in test methods (those measured under the normal CEC quality requirements and are included in specifications, those measured and reported for information but not used in specifications and those that may be reported for safety limit purposes only) should be clearly differentiated in the Test Method itself, in order to avoid any confusion.
2.2.  All CEC Test Methods should include Control Limits for the test, alongside the Precision Statement in Section 11 of the Test Method.  A review is taking place of all Test Methods to establish where information on control limits are missing and SDG’s help will be requested to fill in the gaps in the information.

3.  Improvements to Progress Reports
A variety of statistical formats are available on reference data in graphic or tabulated form from the CEC Test Monitoring System.  These could easily be downloaded for inclusion into Working Group Progress Reports.  An external presentation will be made available to provide advice to Chairman on how to decide what information from the TMS is most useful.  Work is continuing to finalise the Progress Report Pro-forma.  Once published, it can then be used by all Working Group Chairmen.
Some standard information will be added to individual Group Pro-forma Progress Reports by the CEC Secretariat, in order to save Working Group Chairmen time in completing them.

CEC Test Monitoring System Update

Data Quality: The new data input validation procedure is now available on all test types on the CEC Test Monitoring System (TMS). The procedure will check data upload files and give improved feedback to users on data formatting errors.  Instrument ID's: The new upload system checks for valid instrument ID's for each lab for each test. Please check the list of instruments for your lab on the 'main' page for each test type; you can select 'Instruments' on the right hand side of the page, near the top.
HFRR (CEC F-06-96):  We continue to monitor HFRR upload issues and are in contact with hardware suppliers. If you have any problems with HFRR uploads please contact the CEC TMS Support Desk at cec-tma@pdcnet.org.uk

Invitation to Independent Laboratories

The CEC Board invites representatives of Independent Laboratories involved in CEC testing to and open discussion session in Brussels on Wednesday 26th May 2010.  Interested parties should contact the CEC Secretariat.

CEC Secretariat Opening Hours

CEC Secretariat Opening Hours
Opening Hours are now Monday to Thursday, 0800-1730 hours.  The CEC Secretariat office is closed on Fridays.

CEC Help Desk

New Ideas?  Questions to Ask?  Guidance Required?  Support is available from Lyn, Barry and Monique.  See the CEC Web Site for details:  www.cectests.org