By Chuck Cimalore, CTO, Omnify Software
Electronic Business
March, 2006

The pressure is on electronics manufacturers to meet the looming Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) deadline on July 1. How will you ensure that the products you develop are free of hazardous materials?

If you source thousands of components from myriad suppliers, the task may appear impossible. Product lifecycle management (PLM) helps address this problem by providing a means to store, manage and retrieve product data in a unified location. However, PLM alone is not the answer. Content solutions designed for compliance management integrated with PLM gives businesses assurances early in the product development process that end products will meet the various compliance requirements.

The RoHS directive indicates the maximum allowable percentage of hazardous materials used in consumer electronics and computer products. These percentages vary from country to country, and sometimes from state to state. To ensure compliance, manufacturers require a means of identifying and tracking concentration values by weight in homogeneous (materials that cannot be further decomposed into different materials) components. Manufacturers are responsible and liable for non-compliance. This involves establishing a documented and auditable system that prevents non-complying products from entering the European Union and other countries ratifying such laws. Businesses must demonstrate that they exercised all due diligence to avoid committing an offense.

The cost of non-compliance is steep, as Sony realized the hard way. In May 2001, Dutch customs officials seized 1.3 million Sony Playstation game systems worth approximately $162 million because the cables contained levels of cadmium 20 times the limit set by environmental regulations.1 The company had to redesign Playstation 2 games to meet RoHS specifications.

Compliance roadblocks

A recent study by AMR Research revealed that many OEMs are having difficulty preparing for compliance. The roadblocks include:

• Locating and verifying data for thousands of parts from countless suppliers.
• Component information that changes rapidly, making it difficult to ensure the validity.
• Engineering, design and procurement teams lack visibility into compliance data.
• No clear insight into the depth of information needed to mitigate risk.
• Reliance on third parties to collect information that affects their own risk.

Additional challenges stem from the ambiguous guidelines and exemptions set forth for meeting compliance. Manufacturers are also faced with the challenge of finding the best way to obtain, manage, store and report compliance-related data.

A common practice among manufacturers is waiting until the manufacturing phase when a design is complete to build a compliant product. This is highly ineffective. While it seems easy enough to swap out non-compliant parts, the reality is this can cause costly redesign for the manufacturer.

For example, common lead-free alternatives such as tin or copper have higher melting points, which could alter the resulting product. Each new element must be analyzed for compatibility and assurances that it will not degrade quality. Such unexpected changes late in the design process can have a significant impact on product quality, release dates and ultimately on the bottom line.

A better approach is to make compliance a factor in design decisions. Making environmental compliance an inherent part of the design process helps avoid costly late stage redesign problems. PLM systems play a key role in this design methodology by guiding engineers in selecting compliant parts. PLM systems collect, aggregate and analyze substance data for all materials at the earliest stage of development and procurement to ensure all components meet compliance standards. In addition to being a centralized location for product-related data, PLM systems can also integrate their data directly with engineering design tools. Incorporating a database that encompasses an extended set of component data, including engineering parameters and business data (such as costs, lead times and availability) as well as RoHS and WEEE information into schematic design lets engineers select parts based on engineering specifications, business information and compliance data.

Another key aspect of RoHS compliance is the importance of document management and reporting. Documented proof of compliance is required; otherwise, regulated geographies can bar entry. PLM solutions can support the variety of data and documents that need to be managed, including vendor declarations or certificates of compliance, datasheets, material composition/breakdown and even test results.

The data acquisition challenge

PLM systems allow customers to store and manage an unlimited amount of data, yet this does not solve the information acquisition challenge. Businesses are at the mercy of vendors to supply compliance data. Some suppliers have taken an active role to provide their customers with necessary compliance information, while others have not. Gathering data and analyzing parts can be a time-consuming and expensive task for suppliers. Since environmental regulations are subject to change and allowable percentages of hazardous substances may differ for each specification set, manufacturers require a complete record (metadata) of material composition that reveals the exact amount of chemical elements and their compounds used in each supplied item.

Complicating matters even further is the lack of data delivery standards vendors use. In an effort to gather data from various vendors in a consistent format, many manufacturers are turning to content service providers.

Content service providers can save manufacturers from the excessive time spent on researching and acquiring the increasing amount of data that has to be sourced from the myriad of suppliers. In addition, content providers can alleviate the pains of analyzing and standardizing the data.

A complete solution

Accessing accurate data along with an effective means to manage and share this information among product development team members is an ideal path for manufacturers trying to build compliant products. Tightly integrating PLM with content services gives companies a complete, cost-effective solution for meeting compliance. Businesses that are looking to PLM to support their RoHS efforts may want to consider a vendor that has partnered with a provider who is experienced in sourcing and normalizing information for RoHS requirements.

Having access to a single resource that ties the content acquisition with the content management will provide manufacturers with the tools they need to fully comply with regulations while maintaining an efficient product development process.

© 2002-2006 Omnify Software