Facilitating Chemical Data Flow Along Supply Chains

Many product formulators and fabricators are spending significant resources gathering chemical data from their supply chain for regulatory compliance, green product design and certification programs, and chemical disclosure initiatives.  The aim of this project group is to advance the efforts of these companies.  This year the project group is engaged in a project called the Chemical Data Standardization Project to evaluate the feasibility and benefits of standardizing chemical data categories and electronic formats across companies in supply chains, for the range of corporate programs that data are needed for, including: regulatory compliance (e.g., REACH and ROHS); product design; chemical hazard evaluations; life cycle analysis; product certification programs; and ingredient disclosure initiatives.

By standardizing chemical data, companies will have greater success in obtaining data from suppliers, communicating data to customers and regulators, data quality can be improved, and the cost of these activities can be reduced over time.

Standardization Pilot Project in the Electronics Sector

To begin this process of standardization the project group is developing a pilot project in the electronics sector involving: companies in the electronics supply chain; providers of systems and software for inventorying the chemical content of products and evaluating the hazards of chemicals; and supply chain management/environmental compliance software providers. Seagate, HP and Staples are participating in the pilot.

The project has four main phases, as follows:

Phase I: Creation of chemical data "superset"

With input from participating companies across the supply chain and from software providers, the group will develop the specifications for a chemical data "superset," to include type of data, units of measure, and electronic format.

Phase II:  Selection of pilot product component, data collection and formatting

With input from project participants, a product component will be selected and data gathered from the supply chain to populate the chemical data superset (to the greatest extent possible/practicable), in the specified format.

Phase III:  Evaluation of data by project participants

The companies along the supply chain and chemical evaluation system and software providers will be given the data and asked to utilize and evaluate it.

Phase IV:  Development of GC3 Report of the Pilot

A report of the pilot project will include documentation of the chemical data superset, the results of the evaluation, and recommendations.

 

For more information or to join the project group, contact Monica Becker.

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