Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers Face Ever-Increasing Challenges

In a recent article, SGS report that we are on the 'tip of an environmental iceberg' when it comes to implementing processes to effectively manage the collection, risk assessment, and quality assessment of material data across the supply chain.

Electrical and electronics manufacturers around the world are facing an ever increasing demand to be held accountable for every molecule of material contained in their products which may impact the health of the environment, consumers and individuals responsible for manufacturing, recovery, recycling and disposal of end of life products.

The Challenges faced by electrical and electronics suppliers and product manufacturers today include:

• An ever increasing growth of global regulations: Back in 2002, there were about  25 regulations for substance restrictions globally, compared to around 200 presently in 2013. The products in scope of the regulations have also grown due to the impact of legislation such as RoHS and REACH.

• The complexity and volume of material identification and reporting: Materials and substances need to be identified and the data stored and be accessible to the company as well as consumers.

Steps To Help Overcome These Challenges

If you are a supplier of materials, you will need to identify and report the chemical composition of your supplied materials to the capacitor manufacturer. 

If you are the manufacturer you must obtain material composition disclosure information from your suppliers to pass on to your customers. If your material supplier cannot or will not provide the information you will need to take further actions such as removing the supplier from your Approved Manufacturers List (AML) or if that is not possible, having the material analyzed by an accredited materials testing laboratory.

If you are an original equipment manufacturer you will need to have a system in place to store, manage and make available, the data you received from your suppliers, and linked to your product bill of material. These data records, in the case of RoHS II would become part of your Technical Documentation File for your product and must be kept on file for ten years and made available to an EU member state enforcement officer when requested.

To read this article in full, please visit the SGS website.