Arena Datasheet: RoHS Compliance with Confidence

The Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive has far-reaching implications for manufacturers of electrical and electronic products. As of July 1, 2006, manufacturers or “producers” must ensure and monitor the compliance status of each part or material they use in their products. They must also institute a series of process controls to guard against non-compliant materials entering their production processes or material supply. Therefore, savvy manufacturers are seeking a compliance management solution to help them achieve, report on, and maintain RoHS compliance. That solution is Arena collaborative BOM management.

Getting RoHS Compliant

While many companies have started gathering data on compliance status, evidence and substitute parts, they often don’t have proper tools in place to deal with the management of that data. But as the volumes of data grow, complex relationships between products, requirements, parts, compliance statuses, evidence files, and verification history may get lost. And while some companies intend to use manual documentation in spreadsheets and file servers, this approach can only lead to inefficiencies, and costly tracking and reporting errors.

Arena solves the data management challenge by:

• Centralizing product BOMs and compliance information, under revision control;
• Enabling Web-based access for anyone, from anywhere;
• Tracking any number of environmental requirements independently;
• Documenting compliance status, including its rationale;
• Maximizing efficiency through automatic propagation of compliance status for shared parts;
• Tracking part and supplier risk, and demonstrating due diligence;
• Eliminating errors in communications with contract manufacturers, reducing excess and obsolete inventory.

Reporting on RoHS Compliance

Key Capabilities

• Bill of materials (BOM) management with revision control
• Multiple requirements and standards tracking on both the part and assembly level
• Automatic requirements propagation throughout the BOMs
• Supplier collaboration for part data exchange
• Easy data import via industry standard formats (e.g. PDX, XML)
• Substance tracking by manufacturer part
• “Where used” search functionality
• Document management and version control features
• Compliance certification with direct links to evidence files
• Item-level compliance indicators
• Powerful search capability based on either substance or compliance indicators
• Working BOM compliance views
• Revision-specific BOM compliance reports
• Robust change management features

Being RoHS—compliant means having the capacity to generate complete and accurate reports. Without such reports, manufacturers may have their shipments held by authorities—at great expense—until sufficient evidence of compliance can be produced.

Arena solves the reporting challenge by:

• Maintaining as-designed compliance records, including all configuration variations that are effective under a given assembly revision;
• Capturing compliance certification rationale, and demonstrating due diligence;
• Keeping evidence files within the compliance record, eliminating the possibility of incomplete or inaccurate reports;
• Generating instant reports, avoiding costly delays;
• Retaining records automatically, for an indefinite period of time

Living with RoHS Compliance

Even the most compliance-conscious companies will find that their efforts today may not be enough tomorrow. Products undergo design modifications. The supply base changes. New products need to be introduced. Organizations and their personnel change. New regulations are instituted and require manufacturers to meet new standards, and track and report on brand new sets of requirements and data.

Arena solves the ongoing compliance challenge by:

• Enabling design for RoHS compliance;
• Identifying products impacted by End Of Life notifications quickly;
• Enforcing compliance verification as part of the engineering change order (ECO) process;
• Maintaining all conformance assessment history in a structured environment;
• Adding and managing any new regulations independently;
• Using new data exchange standards as they become available.

Arena: The Right Tool for RoHS Compliance

When it comes to RoHS compliance, savvy manufacturers choose Arena Compliance Management because it’s the most efficient, robust and scalable solution on the market. Bundled with a set of RoHS templates and a training workspace, the Compliance Management Solution enables companies to ramp up quickly and effectively. Specific RoHS “jumpstart” services are also available to aid in configuration, data loading and end-user training. Additionally, Arena can be easily integrated with existing ERP systems, providing the critical linkages between the product record and manufacturing planning functions.

Armed with Arena, you can achieve and maintain RoHS compliance with confidence.

Compliance BOM View with Requirement Dropdown