BOMtracker - Bill of Materials Substance Tracking Solution

No manufacturer wants to endure the supply chain pain that Sony once did when the Dutch government blocked the sale of more than 1.3 million Playstation consoles because the cables contained too much cadmium. To help mitigate the risk of such product recalls and to comply with strict legislation like RoHS and REACH, manufacturers must have substance information at their finger tips for every part, component, or sub-assembly used in their finished product.

BOMtracker is a secure, online solution that provides oversight, analysis and substance volume tracking of multilevel BOMS. Rollups of part or substance data can be made across the enterprise, legal entity or location. Regulatory concerns for a part or substance are flagged based upon volume thresholds and regulatory requirements of the final shipment destination of the product. For the electronics industry, BOMtracker automatically creates material declarations in the IPC-1752 Class A, B, C and D and JIG 101 standard in order to alleviate the risk of product recalls and ensure compliance with RoHS, REACH and WEEE.

Challenge

For manufacturers, researching the laws that regulate the delivery of finished goods in certain markets, as well as the parts or components that are impacted, can be a very tedious and time-consuming process. ERP or PLM applications can assist in providing Bill of Material (BOM) and parts lists; however, in order to comply with new regulations, manufacturers must know all substances contained in every part or component used in finished goods. Also, manufacturers have to keep this information current when changes occur to the product’s parts or formulations. In addition, compliance requires full knowledge of the ever-changing regulatory landscape and the ability to react quickly when changes occur, such as when new substances are added to a regulation.

Using cumbersome tools like email and spreadsheets to collect detailed declaration information from hundreds or thousands of material suppliers and manually cross referencing that information against your regulatory lists is resource intensive, time-consuming and many times inaccurate. Failure to know the composition of every part or component used in your finished product and its compliancy in every market could result in blocked product distribution in a market, the loss of all revenue streams, and resulting brand damage.

Solution

BOMtracker is a secure, online solution that provides oversight, analysis and substance volume tracking of multilevel BOMS. ERP or PLM part data can be imported into BOMtracker along with purchase quantities. This data is then merged with supplier substance or part information to track potential regulatory concerns based upon material content and quantity. BOMtracker allows you to drill down through multi-layers of the BOM to the substance or component that triggered the regulatory issue.

An automated email campaign to parts suppliers directs them to BOMtracker to securely enter their material compositional information and required documentation directly into Actio’s centralized database. An existing IPC-conforming XML file with the detailed part information can be uploaded or a material declaration can be manually entered. The system tracks the progress of each supplier request and, if necessary, a follow-up e-mail can be automatically generated for non-responsive suppliers.

Data submitted into BOMtracker can be “rolled up” through all tiers of the supply chain. As more suppliers enter declaration information, the more accurate the manufacturer’s product full disclosure becomes.

BOMtracker leverages Actio’s centralized database of regulatory lists and automatically screens your product BOM to determine if any parts contain a substance listed by a regulation. As a proactive measure, BOMtracker will automatically let you know if your supplier’s part is not compliant or becomes non-compliant due to changes in formulation or regulation.

Benefits

For the Manufacturer

Mitigates supply chain risk as BOMtracker manages material declaration information at the substance level and proactively triggers alerts about non-compliant parts or materials
Automated email communication to suppliers streamlines and tracks the progress of collecting material declarations from suppliers
Suppliers enter their product declaration data directly into Actio’s centralized database, providing manufacturers immediate access to material declaration data
BOMtracker securely stores and maintains multi-level BOMs, parts lists, and material declarations in a central location
RoHS Certificates of Compliance or IPC-1752 Material Declarations can be produced for finished products complete with a digital signature for easy distribution to your customers

For the Supplier

With full support for IPC-1752 and JIG standards, XML data can be uploaded from or downloaded to existing PLM applications
Saves time and prevents repetitive tasks as your material declaration is created once for efficient, secure distribution to all your customers

For Both

Secure portal has multiple levels of access control and provides an audit trail of who accessed what information and when
Database-driven platform provides unparalleled flexibility to quickly adapt to changes in global regulatory directives, parts used in an assembly, product formulations, etc.
Automatic notification if a component substance appears on a new or modified regulatory list
Delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS) with no hardware and software to purchase, install and maintain providing faster time to benefit and lower total cost of ownership
BOMtracker supports VeriSign’s Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology ensuring secure flow of data throughout the supply chain