Managing Automation - December 2007 - (Page 43) Nevertheless, although most companies acknowledge a design-for-compliance strategy as the end game, few are on track to achieve it. For one thing, manufacturers are still trying to get a handle on which compliance directives impact their products and markets, and which exemptions apply. Formulating the kinds of process changes required to push compliance work upstream is another big hurdle as are cultural issues that keep organizations from fully embracing new practices required to address compliance in their overall design objectives. Finally, compliance issues aren’t top-ofmind for C-level executives, as they were in the rollup to the July 2006 deadline for the European Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directives. Now that the initial groundwork has been laid, some of the pressure is off. “[Compliance] is a big, hairy problem for customers that doesn’t always get the attention it should,” says Chad Hawkinson, vice president of product strategy for PTC, which offers PLM and CAD software. “In many cases, management asks if a company is compliant and when the answer comes back yes, they move on. They don’t necessarily ask: How do we know we’re compliant and are we investing in technology so we’re sure we don’t make mistakes?” DATA COLLECTION SCRAMBLE So how does a first-pass run at compliance differ from a full-blown design-for-compliance strategy? In the first go-around, most companies typically focus on compiling information about their materials composition and tracking their product structure so they can validate compliance, qualify for a certificate, and push product out the door. Building checkpoints into the manufacturing process to validate compliance information is part of this stage as is working with suppliers to collect their compliance data, a task typically performed by procurement specialists and, on occasion, engineers. “Most companies gather the documents to prove compliance manually, keeping good, old-fashioned, paper-based records; collecting material spec sheets; and keeping a ledger or spreadsheet that says this product has these parts,” the Siemens spokesman says. “Then, at the end, depending on the regulation, they need to scour all those documents to see, for example, if a product has any lead in it. It becomes very time-consuming, labor-intensive, and error-prone.” The best way to avoid this circuitous route is to incorporate compliance objectives at the onset of the design process much as you might factor in weight considerations or quality criteria. “Design for compliance is similar to design for cost or design for quality. It’s all about early visibility when products only exist virtually as designs in a file system or in memory,” says Dries D’Hooge, senior director of product strategy and management for Oracle. Oracle now offers PLM software as a result of its acquisition earlier this year of Agile Software Corp. “That’s when you can get a good notion about compliance, do what-if scenarios on the product, and make changes easily and cheaply.” Beforehand, however, companies must fully understand what standards or regulations they must comply with. This may be clear for electronics makers, which are up against directives such as RoHS and WEEE, or automotive manufacturers, which must adhere to the guidelines under End of Life Vehicle (ELV) regulations. But the compliance canvas may be blurrier for industries such as medical device makers or in specific geographic regions, where exemptions may apply. Once the compliance objectives are clearly established, technology can play a key role in pushing compliance practices further upstream. PLM software, for example, can serve as a central repository for all compliance-related materials — everything from bills of materials to less formal PDF spec sheets and e-mails — giving everyone access to the same compliance status information. This way, people can make informed decisions on parts and materials early in the conceptual stage of design. Some PLM platforms, including Siemens’ Teamcenter Environmental Compliance Module and the PTC Environmental Compliance Solution for Siemens’ Teamcenter Environmental Compliance Module issues pass/fail reports on products. Photo courtesy: Siemens 43 December 2007
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