The RoHS Reality: Ensuring Compliance and Compatibility
The early years of EU Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) legislation created a great shuffling of the deck for companies that made electrical products which relied heavily on affordable, easy to manipulate materials -- such as lead used in soldering.
According to the updated RoHS directive, all electrical equipment and electronics (EEE) would have to be made without the use of ten substances considered hazardous to consumer health, employee safety and the environment--substances which were in prominent use over the greater part of the 20th century.
Challenge #1: Meeting New Design and Assembly Standards
When the legislation was enacted, all of a sudden EU manufacturers were required to not only find safer alternatives for these substances, but quite often, forced to alter their design and manufacturing methods--often to more expensive methods--as these new substance properties dictated.
New design decisions had to be made, creating a new set of quality assurance standards which the company’s production plants now had to adhere to.
For instance, lead-free soldering generally has a higher melting point than traditional lead-tin alloys, which means that during assembly of a circuit board, the accompanying components would also have to withstand these higher temperatures. A cheap, non-RoHS compliant accompanying part would be ruined by these new production demands.
If a company uses more than one factory to produce various components for an EEE product, it must be certain that:
- One of the factories is producing RoHS compliant components.
- The other factory is producing/supplying attachment parts compatible with these compliant components.
- The components are being assembled properly, based on RoHS compliant specifications.
Challenge #2: Keeping Check On Plants Around the World
For most large-scale companies, these are issues that can be spread out over several continents and countries, creating a lot of legwork and calling for a quality control inspector.
Compliance. Compatibility. QA and QC. These are all heady, distinct terms with important bearing on your company’s EEE products. Without the ability to unify these terms into one successful action plan, you risk losing out on a rapidly changing market. Here are a couple questions to consider:
Are the products I am designing meeting RoHS (or any comparable) standard?
QIMA's quality assurance service can assist you at every critical stage of development to make sure your design is ready for production, that every detail meets your market’s compliance standards AND remains compatible across the board.
Now that my design is assured, can I be certain that my factories across the globe are following specifications and producing top-tier merchandise?
QIMA's inspection services employs over 2,500 trained and qualified inspectors and auditors around the world; each native to the area in which they work, and each with unparalleled expertise in local business practices.
To further streamline the RoHS compliance process, QIMA allows you to integrate your RoHS testing during your product inspection, guaranteeing that the sample is from your actual production run, not a some “perfect” sample the factory wants you to test.
Easily Schedule Your RoHS Compliance Tests Online.
Our online platform and mobile application make it easy for you to schedule RoHS Compliance tests and receive your results at any time. Book new tests, view pending orders, and access results from your mobile device. Our online platform provides valuable supply chain insights, including a summary of your QC activity, all of your supplier’s quality stats, industry benchmarking data, and more.
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