A critical aspect of determining product compliance is gathering material declarations from the supply chain for outsourced parts in products. Materials Compliance Manager provides tools to allow compliance engineers to 1) determine which outsourced parts are unreported, 2) generate Material Declaration Requests for these parts, and 3) import material declarations once suppliers provide them.
Supplier Materials Compliance Engineer facilitates the data collection process by providing a web site for suppliers to:
- Log in and view material declaration requests
- Download parts in an industry-standard data collection format such as IPC-1752, JAMP AIS, or Compliance Connect
- Interactively create IPC 1752 declarations using an on-line editor
- Upload completed material declarations
As a standalone web application, Supplier Materials Compliance Engineer can be installed on a separate application server outside the firewall. It communicates with Materials Compliance Manager through a secure web service interface. It can be configured to automate the import of material declarations once they are uploaded, and also show suppliers whether their material declarations have been accepted or rejected by the compliance engineers.
The Compliance Connect spreadsheet, which is included with Supplier Materials Compliance Engineer, consists of intelligent worksheets that allow suppliers to define material declarations for their parts. The declaration could be a full material declaration including sub-parts, materials, and substances. Or, it could be a partial declaration where the supplier provides either a Yes or No answer for compliance or indicates the substances in the part that exceed a threshold. At each level, Compliance Connect validates that all fields are specified completely and correctly. At the end of the process, the supplier is required to certify that the information they have entered is correct. Three separate versions Compliance Connect are provided:
- RoHS (Reduction of Hazardous Substances) – collects data for the High-Tech industry.
- ELV (End-of-Life Vehicle) – collects data for the Automotive industry.
- ELV+RoHS – collects data for the Automotive (ELV) and High-Tech (RoHS) industries.
The supplier is prompted by Compliance Connect to provide important compliance data, including part manufacturing process information, material recycled content, and RoHS or ELV compliance data, including exemptions taken for specific RoHS or ELV substances in materials. The RoHS and ELV+RoHS versions of the spreadsheet automatically determines whether reported parts are RoHS compliant, and in the cases where they are not, the supplier is prompted to enter further information indicating how a compliant version of the part will be provided in the future.
Once the certified Compliance Connect file is created, it can be uploaded through Supplier Materials Compliance Engineer.