It’s a discomforting thought, but by inadvertently purchasing the wrong materials for your processes you may be opening up your facility to potential noncompliance fines, shutdowns, and other complications without even knowing it. A seemingly safe material could turn out to be a Trojan horse, costing you far more than you expect.
When it comes to defending yourself from this sort of mishap, most facilities have a reactionary policy -- moving to fix an issue when they discover a material violates a regulatory condition or puts them at a market disadvantage. As most executives know, reacting to a situation means you are not in control. This article will focus instead on the benefits you can experience by proactively developing a system to prevent these material issues before they occur.
Any time a material enters your facility, it brings with it many types risks: it might contain a little-known substance that’s been banned by the EPA, it could increase your VOC or GHG emissions above emission limits or you could even lock yourself out of a valuable market by using a substance prohibited in that region.
All of these risks typically go unnoticed until you start paying the consequences.
There is nothing more costly than discovering you can’t sell a product you’ve manufactured from start to finish because it contains a substances banned by the EPA, or that some countries can’t import your goods for a similar reason.
Similarly, if you’re a Tier II supplier you may notice OEMs becoming more sensitive about what goes into their products. This trend could cause a sudden shift in requirements from further up the chain, as OEMs look to eliminate certain substances from their products, meaning you will have to actively ensure none of their banned substances end up in your product.
Make Prevention a Process
It’s no secret -- the way forward in manufacturing is as lean as possible, with automation paying a huge role in driving efficiencies upwards and costs down. But how can you ever hope to be as efficient as possible if you’re playing catch up for avoidable mistakes?
That’s why developing a “gatekeeper system” to vet your material purchases could be your best choice for the next step in your continuous improvement measures at your facilities.
This gatekeeper system can play many roles, including vetting products for their contribution to the energy efficiency of the supply chain, their green chemistry e-factor, and other performance indicators that are starting to play a big role in the future of manufacturing.
Your gatekeeper system should take into account all of your compliance obligations: external, internal, and voluntary. Each one comes with its own list of vetting criteria and each will have a different level of priority.
External compliance obligations will differ from facility to facility, and are generally based on permit conditions and any additional local regulations. Depending on how complex your operations are, your gatekeeping system may need to reference several databases and “ban” lists.
Your gatekeeper system may also require some forecasting capabilities, as a material may not present an immediate compliance risk, but could jeopardize your compliance with sustained use. You’ll only be able to anticipate these consequences by calculating the resulting emissions before they occur. Having a gatekeeper system in place to vet materials first could be the only thing protecting you from finding out at the end of the reporting year that you used a noncompliant material which, over time, has resulted in your organization having to pay fines.
