Club of bologna proceedings

El Hassan BOURARACH
Sometimes we have found some changes in parts 
and performance of machines from one country 
to another, particularly in developing countries. 
So we try to use OECD and other testing re-
ports, but we don’t find exactly the same speci-
fication. What was done in Europe or in Japan 
differs from the specification we find in our 
country. What do you think of this problem and 
how to solve it? 
 
Hiroyuki TAKAHASHI
In answer to the question about sanctions and 
mandatory tests: in Japan we only have the vo-
luntary tests, so we don’t have mandatory tests. 
This means that we have no sanctions regarding 
this issue. And as regards the standards of test 
codes, we are an executive organisation, so the 
definition of a code or a standard is issued by 
the government. 
 

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150
Lothar FISCHER
Dr. Liberatori, as a representative of the agri-
cultural machinery industry, I have a slightly 
different opinion about competition as you e-
xpressed it. You didn’t want to have competition 
in terms of pricing. Competition may not be li-
ked, but it’s good for the customer. So we need 
competition, and you should be prepared for it. 
 
Sandro LIBERATORI 
Of course we know that some competition can 
be good, but I don’t think too much competition 
on testing is good for us. That’s because we 
must keep in mind the final aim of this project, 
which is to create specialised laboratories in 
Europe. In every country there will be some la-
boratories specialised in certain machines. And 
those laboratories will not be in other countries. 
One example: mineral spreaders. We had some 
meetings in Denmark, where there is a very spe-
cialised centre for mineral spreaders. They have 
a very good structure, very good equipment and 
very skilled technicians. In Italy, then, I am not 
starting up something like that, because it would 
be too expensive, and I prefer to send manufac-
turers to Denmark, because there is already a 
very good testing station there. I will tests ma-
chines in Italy only for small tests that will be 
valid only for Italy, but for a full European test I 
will say “go to Denmark”. So this is a very go-
od example of what will be the final aim of our 
activity. In our last meeting we already discus-
sed which typologies of machines every testing 
station is interested in. It’s a start, so we are all 
improving only specific kinds of machinery, 
which are different for each testing station. 
That’s because in the future, more than now, we 
will need very expensive instruments for testing 
machines, as well as very skilled technicians, 
and it will be all too expensive for one country 
to have all this for all types of agricultural ma-
chines.