Brian Hatcher from Acal warns against underestimating the challenge of flushing non-compliant product through the supply chain
By July 2006, all manufacturers of electronic and electrical equipment sold in Europe must comply with the EU’s RoHS Directive (2002/95/EC). Component manufacturers are making commitments to meet this deadline, but the problem is far more complex for the OEMs.
Many OEMs need time to ensure that their production is geared to these new requirements, and this work is under way. A bigger challenge will be flushing non-compliant product through the supply chain, and this problem is greatly underestimated.
Distributors need to make arrangements with suppliers to ensure all products delivered after July 2006 meet the regulations. Where they hold buffer stocks for customers, any non-compliant product must be used up and replaced with compliant product by that deadline.
The problem doesn’t stop here: OEMs must ensure that their stocks are refreshed well before the deadline, so that all product shipped after the deadline is RoHS-compliant.
There is no mix and match in the manufacturing of non-compliant and compliant product. Solder temperature points are different for each category and cross-contamination will be a major problem. It is important to remember that just one non-compliant component could render an entire system impossible to sell.
Some suppliers have grasped the problem and are reacting positively. For example, one of our franchises has been offering ‘Green Packaging’ since 2002. Today all plastic packages, including commercial, industrial, automotive and military devices, are offered as RoHS compliant products. They have also introduced a part-number suffix to indicate RoHS compatible products, simplifying the transition.
Much has been written about the technical issues of the RoHS legislation, but the problem of making sure that, by July 2006, all product in the supply chain meets the regulations could present the biggest challenge.
The position of distributors between the component supplier and OEM, and their knowledge of the supply chain places a huge responsibility on them to manage this problem and ensure that their customers will be compliant by the deadline.
Brian Hatcher is senior product manager at Acal Semiconductors
www.acaltechnology.co.uk
See also: Electronics Weekly's roundup of content related to The ROHS Directive