CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
30 March 2007
Product News
Synapsis Software Helps Companies Comply with China RoHS Regulation
Synapsis Technology, Inc., announced Friday that EMARST, its environmental compliance software solution, now provides support for the China RoHS environmental compliance regulation. The EMARS China RoHS module is designed to help companies comply with Phase One of the China RoHS regulation, and prepare them for Phase Two.
Companies that fail to comply with the China RoHS regulation may soon be prevented from shipping products into China.
"We're finding that the number one compliance concern among manufacturers right now is China RoHS, particularly the disclosure and documentation requirements that went into effect this month," said Lonnie Gillihan, Synapsis' president. "China RoHS is bigger than EU RoHS ever was because the scope of the law includes more industries, companies, and products."
The China RoHS regulation (officially called the "Management Methods for Controlling Pollution Caused by Electronic Information Products Regulation") will require manufacturers to limit the use of six hazardous substances in their products - the same six substances specified in the European Union's RoHS directive: lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB), and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE).
However, unlike its European counterpart, which only recommends that companies disclose their products' material content, China RoHS requires disclosure in the form of a specific "x-and-o" chart. As described in China's industry standard document, Marking for Control of Pollution Caused by Electronic Information Products (SJ/T11364-2006), this chart must show the presence or absence of each of the six substances with respect to specified thresholds, broken down by part or subassembly.
Synapsis' new EMARS China RoHS Solution enables users to:
• Generate an accurate declaration chart in the "x-and-o" format specified by the China RoHS directive. EMARS users can generate a completed chart that accurately reflects a product's composition in minutes. No manual loading of product bills of material (BOMs) is required because BOMs can be accessed "as-is" from most major enterprise data systems.
• Perform rollups of complex, multi-level product BOMs into a single "x-and-o" chart. Users can configure chart rows to represent major subassemblies of the product, individual components, or any grouping in between.
• Perform drill down analysis on any "x-and-o" chart. Users can quickly determine what supplier part or material is contributing to a compliance failure and why it is causing the failure - enabling users to take corrective action.
• Perform worst-case analysis on all multi-sourced component permutations of a product. Perform best-case analysis to identify scenarios that meet shipment goals. Use these and other analysis reports to support "design for compliance" initiatives.
• Keep up-to-date as the China RoHS regulation changes. EMARS maintains the latest substance lists and thresholds associated with the China RoHS law as they are implemented.
Andrew M. Wertkin, Synapsis' chief software architect said, "Our China RoHS solution clearly demonstrates the strength of the EMARS platform. Our customers benefit because all the material composition data they've already collected for EU RoHS can be used for China RoHS analysis and reporting. Companies that don't have EMARS and haven't collected their data in the right way are literally going back to every one of their suppliers and asking them to re-certify - a data collection process that we've seen take one to three years for large manufacturers."
More information on Synapsis' EMARS China RoHS solution is available online at http://www.synapsistech.com/china-rohs
Become a member of the CIMdata PLM Community to receive your daily PLM news and much more.
Tell us what you think of the CIMdata Newsletter. Send your feedback.
CIMdata is committed to your privacy. Your personal information will never be sold or shared outside of CIMdata without your express permission.