Material content reporting poses a difficult challenge to many manufacturers. Specific regulations have changed in both the scope of materials covered (RoHS added 4 new substances) and the scope of how the regulation should be interpreted (REACH offers new definition of an ‘article’). In this ever-changing and compulsory setting, there are further complications from emerging regulations and customer requirements for specific material usage. These requirements are passed along to suppliers and some statement of compliance or quality agreement is generally sought.
Full material disclosure is only as good as the ability to search for and recognize specific substances quickly, identifying “at-risk” products and suppliers, and to use the data as proof to a customer who is asking for specific details on material use.
Green Data Exchange (GDX) now offers customized searching of substances and substance groups. You can use a pre-loaded list of substances to determine any usage of particular substances, whether regulated or not. This includes the ability to load a customer’s restricted materials list in order to check and maintain compliance to customer specific requirements. Finally, any restricted substance list can be added to GDX and assessed against existing material data.
Any custom substance list may be added. Lists can also be edited to add or remove substances as requirements change and adapt. Also, applications need not be limited to material content compliance. You can now use GDX to see where specific substances are in your products in order to determine information on potential tariffs, to compare potential replacement parts for material breakdown, to identify different manufacturing streams by substance, and much more.
The new feature works seamlessly with the existing GDX filters on the parts tab. This affords the ability to review restricted substances along with other part details like lifecycle information in order to determine if an action needs to be taken. You can also evaluate a specific product or product family against the restricted substance list by using the existing product compliance module and filters.
As new substances and regulatory substances lists emerge, GDX substance lists will be updated to reflect the latest changes. For example, the “REACH SVHC Candidates” list will be updated with the most recent SVHC Candidate List additions.
To learn more about this feature and others that GDX offers, please review our website.
