Product Data and Compliance

Regulations governing substance compliance and environmental sustainability will continue to tighten. This places specific demands on product data and structuring, on business processes, and on the applications used in the compliance process.

It will become increasingly important for companies to provide reliable—and, above all, highly efficient—evidence of substance compliance and environmental sustainability. This means, among other things, that compliance can no longer be demanded and assessed solely in retrospect, but must already be incorporated into design and procurement decisions. What is needed is a robust compliance management strategy that takes individual requirements, prerequisites, and objectives into account.

Typical Challenges Related to Compliance and Sustainability

One challenge is that decision-makers and experts or management and the business often have differing perceptions and objectives regarding compliance and sustainability. This “perception gap” must be bridged as much as possible. Other key questions include:

Reducing uncertainty: How can compliance evidence be produced in a way that is as robust and reliable as possible or necessary?
Efficiency: How much time and money should compliance documentation cost?
Supply chain/external service providers: Can internal compliance efforts be reduced by holding the supply chain and, where applicable, external service providers accountable?
Business need: Which regulations and guidelines are currently and will be binding for the company in the future?

Why compliance and sustainability certifications are becoming increasingly important

In addition to established regulations such as REACH, RoHS, and other industry-specific regulations, the European Green Deal framework includes specific regulations and rules. These include, among others, the Ecodesign Regulation (ESPR) and the EU Battery Regulation. These are to be implemented gradually by 2030 through the Digital Product Passport (DPP). The Battery Passport and the Textile Passport will come into effect as early as 2027. This will generally lead to stricter or increased requirements for companies. Information and product data must be published transparently, including the origin of materials, substances (SVHCs), the ecological footprint, etc. This leads to three key insights:

The stricter requirements cannot be efficiently met with a document-based compliance approach. System-integrated material data and end-to-end compliance data are indispensable.
Documentation alone will no longer suffice; rather, design considerations (ecodesign) and sourcing decisions must already be made based on the ecological footprint.
Environmental sustainability is shifting from an option to a requirement.

Deterministic processes and probabilistic interpretation clearly separated

Data Consistency Across the Compliance Management Process Chain as a Prerequisite
In general, a solid foundation for compliance should be established as early as possible within the end-to-end process chain. When selecting a compliance strategy, it is important to balance efficiency with robustness. A detailed analysis or, if necessary, an assessment can help in choosing the right strategy or approach for the specific situation. The compliance management process chain consists of four phases:

Step 1: Product Design/Specification
The more precise the specification, the more robust the evidence. Accordingly, compliance should be established here using metadata (material, semi-finished product, weight, etc.) rather than relying solely on documentation. In addition, the specification should already take into account substance compliance, environmental factors, etc. (ecodesign). Involving the purchasing department as early as possible is also important to refine procurement strategies. The explicit definition of manufacturers and suppliers of items ensures compliance with minimum requirements regarding the specification of catalog items (Manufacturer ID).

Step 2: Compliance Declaration
When it comes to declarations, the goal is to hold manufacturers and the supply chain accountable for the declaration requirement. The objective—and at the same time the challenge—here is to request declarations as metadata rather than as documents to ensure consistency. There are several options for obtaining the declarations. The declaration can be obtained internally by the company communicating with the supply chain, e.g., via a declaration portal. It is also possible to use external support from compliance service providers for compliance and footprint declarations.

Step 3: Compliance Check
The compliance check regarding adherence to regulations on compliance and environmental sustainability is conducted across the entire product structure (BOMs). The calculation can be performed by an external service provider, which is very efficient but results in lower reliability of the evidence. If, on the other hand, the calculation is performed internally, there is a deep understanding of the BOM and its context, and the results can be reused in all BOM applications. Additionally, internal factors such as the use of operating materials can be taken into account, and IP protection of sensitive data such as BOMs is ensured.

Step 4: Compliance Reporting
In the final phase, based on the compliance declaration and the compliance check, the regulation- and guideline-specific documentation requirements for products for sale (spare parts, spare part kits) as well as individual items are fulfilled. Reliable data consistency is crucial for the robustness of the documentation in every case.

Companies are facing growing legal requirements that demand compliant and environmentally sound products. On the one hand, this increases the pressure to provide robust evidence with the greatest possible efficiency. On the other hand, this development also offers companies the opportunity to strengthen their own competitiveness with structured product data and clear material specifications.

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