UGS Corp. teamed up with Synapsis Technology, Inc. and is now offering manufacturers in the automotive and electronic industries a seamless way to comply with environmental regulations.
The new solution integrates EMARS (Environmental Materials Aggregation and Reporting System) software, Synapsis' software for environmental material and hazardous substance reporting, with Teamcenter software, UGS' digital lifecycle management solution.
"The relatively recent enactment of several environmental regulations regarding the material content for automotive, electronic and electrical products has created a daunting information management and reporting project for thousands of manufacturers worldwide," said Lonnie Gillihan, president of Synapsis Technology Inc. which is based in Spring House, Pa.
Examples of the recent regulations include:
- WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) which assigns producers of electrical and electronic equipment legal responsibility for financing the treatment, recycling and recovery of consumer electronic goods.
- Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) dictates certain consumer electronic goods marketed within the EU may not contain more than the permitted levels of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, PBBs or PBDEs.
- The ELV (End of Life Vehicle) directive, which has been adopted by the EU. Its goal is making vehicle dismantling and recycling more environmentally friendly. ELV sets clear quantified targets for reuse, recycling and recovery of vehicles and their components.
The new software includes several features designed to address the specific requirements of these regulations.
- Data collection, verification and management
- Component qualification and exemption management
- Product qualification and reporting
- Product bill-of-materials (BOM) aggregation across multiple sourced components
- Compliance validation -- the ability to compare a BOM with a particular industry standard
- Data exchange and reporting
- Design for compliance -- the ability to select product components based on material content and their ability to comply with regional standards
"Companies need the ability to implement new, lean and efficient techniques that take environmental issues into account early and throughout a product's lifecycle. The UGS and Synapsis offerings combine production proven tools into solutions to do just that -- enable 'Design for Compliance.' The result is that qualification, exemption, validation and reporting are integrated into the process of innovation, enabling another dimension for competitive advantage while producing environmentally friendly and compliant products," said Chuck Grindstaff, executive vice president of Products, UGS, which is based in Plano, Texas.
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