RoHS Compliance

The RoHS directive (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) limits the use of hazardous substances in products that are sold to the European Union after July 1, 2006. Similar requirements are being legislated in Asia and elsewhere throughout the world. The implications RoHS and other eco-compliance directives are serious. According to the British government, "failure to comply with the requirements of the UK's RoHS regulations will result in the removal of the manufacturers' products from the market place." Ultimately, it's the electronics manufacturer who will be held accountable for ensuring that their products, and those of their supply chain, are compliant.

Boardwalktech, through our strategic partners, is active in the iNEMI and IPC standardization efforts and is the sponsor of an open-source Microsoft® Excel-based MCD exchange form which allows partners throughout the supply chain to submit compliance information for multiple parts simultaneously using a single form and then easily exchange material data with existing systems of record (PDM, ERP, etc.).

RoHS Compliance Challenges

Existing industry efforts to insure data collection techniques are common across the industry, and have focused on defining a data standard regarding what data is collected, not how to best collect this data. This has left many companies with not only an increased data collection challenge, but also an increased burden on maintaining the data once it is collected
As an example, electronic manufacturers have started to develop a material declaration process. This has resulted in a myriad of data collection techniques and forms being used to manually interact with trading partners both up & down the supply chain. With an increased scrutiny on collecting and maintaining declaration information, manual methods simply do not scale effectively

Traditional enterprise-centric, database-driven approaches do not work well in a distributed, ad-hoc, Excel-centric supply chain. As compliance requirements evolve, adoption and change to new requirements can be difficult and costly

The Boardwalktech Solution: BCP-Driven RoHS Compliance

Boardwalktech, working with its partners, has developed an open-source, standards-based Excel-based Material Composition Declaration (MCD) form which can be used to collect information on multiple parts from all your suppliers since they, too, use Excel to manage this data internally

Boardwalktech's solution can be used to manage material declaration exchanges with your all your trading partners-- customers and suppliers

This open-source, multi-vendor cooperative effort is aligned with the emerging IPC-1752 standard defining the industry-wide data elements required for a MCD form. As the standard evolves, the open-source MCD form will be modified to insure continued alignment

A complete end-to-end solution including an eco-compliance database, automated form population/extraction of data, exchange management, and data analysis and reporting

The form and additional information on how to participate in its development can be found on the sourceforge.net site for the Excel-based, eco-compliance Material Composition Declaration (MCD) form

Boardwalktech's solution, the Eco-Compliance Database System (ECDS), can be used to manage material declaration exchanges with your all your trading partners-- customers and suppliers. The following diagram shows how ECDS can be used to manage your compliance process.

The Boardwalktech Eco-Compliance Database System (ECDS) can manage a master version of your parts compliance information in a Part Compliance Boardwalk Collaborative Platform (BCP) Database which is continually synchronized with your master ERP system through an Excel (.xls) exchange. If there are parts which need compliance information, the Transient Request BCP Database can manage communications with internal staff and external suppliers using either the open-source Excel-based standard form or any other Excel form. The Excel form can be emailed or downloaded and automatically populated with the requested part information.

Using the form's multi-part capability, trading partners can easily make updates to their part compliance information and submit the data securely over the Internet to the ECDS. At the same time, the form itself is securely signed and emailed to the requestor. This locked electronic file can be stored as a true "declaration" and used during any subsequent due diligence inquiry. Securely accessed controlled and change managed, ECDS lets you easily see what suppliers have provided what information and when-- all consolidated automatically in a single, auditable location.

Once the declaration information is collected, your internal team can then asses and validate the information, using manual or automated checks, and submit an approved update back to the Part Compliance BCP Database. This information can then be accessed by your customers at any time to insure they, too, are able to have the latest compliance data.

If there is a need to change the information you want to collect or provide on your parts, the ECDS can be updated as easily as changes are made to a standard Excel spreadsheet. Once the ECDS has been updated, the next time anyone opens an Excel form and retrieves data from the ECDS, the changes to the ECDS will be reflected automatically in the form. The Boardwalktech system ensures that the forms already distributed stay in sync with the ECDS.

Since interactions with ECDS are all based on data, there's no need to send everyone new Excel forms. This eliminates the burdensome process of propagating a change to a traditional database system which has been "mapped" to an Excel form where you have to send everyone a new form and manage multiple versions-- the Boardwalktech system does all this on-the-fly.

Benefit

With Boardwalktech's ECDS, your company always has, on-demand, the latest eco-compliance information available for all your parts