RoHS Compliance

On this page

• How Arena supports RoHS compliance
• Tracking RoHS compliance
• Documenting RoHS compliance
• Collaborating around RoHS data
• Reporting on RoHS compliance
• Enforcing controls

Arena enables manufacturers to ensure RoHS compliance through its compliance management features. Bundled with a set of RoHS templates and a training workspace, Arena enables companies to ramp up quickly and effectively.

European Union RoHS 2002/95/EC Directive
Shipping products that are covered by RoHS to Europe amounts to claiming compliance for each unit in the shipment. Therefore, the producer should be able to demonstrate RoHS compliance by submitting a “RoHS technical file” to the enforcement authorities upon request.

How Arena supports RoHS compliance

Having one single product record under revision control provides the ideal platform to manage RoHS compliance as an integral part of the design and manufacturing process. The RoHS Compliance Management solution within Arena provides all critical capabilities needed to track, document, collaborate, report and enforce design and operational controls in order to demonstrate product compliance and/or due diligence.

Tracking RoHS Compliance

Arena enables you to efficiently and accurately track part and product based compliance:

• Manage your entire bill of materials—mechanical, electrical and any other types of items (purchased or expensed)—under revision control, as the basis for a complete and accurate compliance record.
• Track part compliance status, including exemptions, against multiple regulatory requirements (RoHS-5, RoHS-6, JIG-A, etc.) as an overlay to the bill of material in a compliance BOM.
• Leverage extensive categorization capabilities to efficiently manage compliance by part family or type.
• Track risk level by item, ensuring consistency in compliance evidence in order to demonstrate due diligence
  [Footnote: See reference to “high concern materials” in RoHS Enforcement Guidance Document].
• Manage compliance by revision for each part, assembly or product, maintaining accurate compliance history of old product configurations [Footnote: Compliance records are required to be maintained 4 years from the moment the product is put on the market].
• Enable efficient Design for Environment (DfE) by providing powerful compliance based search and putting relevant compliance information at the engineers’ finger tips in the design stage

Documenting RoHS Compliance

Manage all compliance documentation in Arena to maintain a complete evidence record:

• Document custom part compliance requirement statements as
  part of the product specifications, demonstrating due diligence.
• Store manufacturer part compliance evidence like certificates
  of compliance, material declarations (in PDF, IPC-1752, etc.),
  part screening reports and supplier audits directly within the
  product record.
• Efficiently categorize your evidence documentation for easy consistency checks and complete compliance reporting.
• Document compliance rationale directly within the compliance
  BOM, providing auditable evidence of a consistent conformance assessment process.

Collaborating around RoHS Compliance Data

Collaborate with the supply chain on gathering compliance data, managing part changes and communicating phase-out information:

• Provide suppliers and contract manufacturers controlled access to product records for parts they manufacture, ensuring communication of up-to-date specifications.
• Allow suppliers to directly upload compliance documents (certificates of compliance, material declarations, etc.) for any of their parts, making it available for compliance engineers to evaluate and include as evidence.
• Include suppliers and contract manufacturers in the engineering change management process (ECO), ensuring early visibility into material transition problems.
• Track material disposition as part of the electronic ECO, minimizing potential inventory mix-up and documenting due diligence.

Reporting on RoHS Compliance

Support instant and accurate compliance reporting, across the products’ entire lifecycle:

• Obtain a real-time overview of a bill of material compliance status, for each requirement tracked.
• Maintain visibility into compliance assessment progress as a percentage completion across the entire product.
• Report on RoHS compliance by instantly generating a complete BOM compliance report on a product including all evidence files, for current as well as historic revisions.

Enforcing Controls

Leverage Arena to implement various operational controls as part of an active Compliance Assurance System (CAS): [Footnote: For concept of a CAS, see the RoHS Enforcement Guidance Document]

• Implement compliance impact analysis controls as part of your electronic change management (ECO) process.
• Attach screening reports for incoming “high concern” parts to the manufacturer part number, extending the compliance record with more due diligence evidence.
• Upload first article inspection reports from the contract manufacturer to establish further evidence of compliance validation.
• Implement an easy to use closed-loop corrective action process using Arena’s change request capabilities, supporting the quality management system objective of continuous improvement.

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