By Gina Roos
Green Supply Line
August 1, 2005

Wilmington, Mass. — Leveraging product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions such as those offered by Omnify Software can help companies better manage product development and streamline their product data management processes to meet the European Union's Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive that bans six hazardous materials from electronics equipment.

The Omnify PLM solution for RoHS compliance provides companies with a way to classify all component data including with regulation compliance flags (such as RoHS compliant, JIG compliant, Green compliant, not compliant, etc.) that can be saved and exported into a bill of materials report to identify compliant and non-compliant parts. These reports can be generated for any level — from component to top assembly — of a product’s composition at any stage of product development. It can also provide direct integration with a company’s EDA, ERP/MRP and PDM systems.

Omnify can also store all the materials declarations and certificates of compliance from suppliers in a database that can be exported into a bundled report. Users can also easily import component data from online content providers such as PartMiner, Total Parts Plus, Silicon Expert, Arrow, i2 and IHS.

"The reason why there is a real push for compliance solutions with PLM software is because it sits closer to the engineering space then it does to ERP systems," explained Chuck Cimalore, chief executive officer for Omnify.

Cimalore said the earlier a designer can check and detect for potential design issues, the easier it is to avoid costly respins. In addition, it also saves money in the manufacturing phase by ensuring that the engineers are equipped with information to design in items that are most appropriate for compliance, he added.

The other advantage is that PLM solutions typically offer architectures to support the sort of data that needs to be managed for any regulatory compliance, Cimalore said. Most PLM systems have the concept of user defined fields that can be very easily adapted to recognize compliance tags whereas a ERP system is focused more on schedules and materials and is deep into production or manufacturing, he said.

In addition, Omnify's PLM solution allows a user to define an unlimited number of attributes, which has become more advantageous over the past six months for customers who need additional compliance reporting features.

Another key concept of a PLM system is document management, which is becoming an important aspect of any environmental compliance program. "Everything needs to be documented so you need a system, i.e., a PLM, that allows you to store vendor certificates of compliance. Whenever any authority requests proof that every part designed into a product is clean or green, the PLM system allows you to manage the documents associated with it," Cimalore said.

One of the key advantages of Omnify's solution is that component data/attributes can be stored at the part (item master) level and vendor part level, which is key when customers have multiple suppliers associated with the same part. "A compliance tag may not necessarily be effective if there are multiple suppliers. You need validation from each supplier that the part is green or compliant," Cimalore said.

The company's latest 2.8 version, released in January 2005, also introduced some additional features that allow a company to fully characterize the complete material composition. Customers can define key hazardous materials and store data on the amount of hazardous material present in the part along with the total weight of the component.

"Now it will allow our customers to identify the key hazardous material items and to build a mathematical model that determines whether the component is compliant or not as opposed to an attribute with a yes or no, or true or false tags," Cimalore said.

The company developed the system in this way because environmental regulations continue to evolve. "It allows the system to adapt as regulations change to determine if the product is compliant and can ship into a particular territory or region," Cimalore said.

"Each country will have their own set of standards and there may be a different allowable percentage [for the hazardous materials] in each country so just identifying a simple tag that this is compliant or not, may not necessarily cover all the bases in the future," he added.

There are quite a bit of challenges ahead for OEMs with these regulations and it is going to change the way they procure and the way they design, Cimalore said.

One of the key issues is to make sure that engineers are designing in green products by providing them with all the necessary compliance information so that they can make better design decisions up front, Cimalore said.

© 2002-2006 Omnify Software