Pass/Fail: RoHS deadline leaves no room for 99% compliant
By Drew Wilson
Green SupplyLine
6/02/2006
Industry sources say there is a category of companies that despite comprehensive compliance efforts will have a product that just falls short of RoHS conformance.
Eric Karofsky, senior analyst at AMR Research Inc., (Boston Mass.) said a lot of companies are well on their way to compliance but they aren't there yet due to a small gap in compliance.
These companies are not negligent, as they have done their due diligence, Karofsky said. But they fail to completely close the compliance gap possibly due to one troublesome component or some unforeseen glitch in the supply chain, he added.
Unfortunately, these companies have few options with a July 1 deadline looming ahead of them. RoHS has no transition period and the July 1 deadline is a pass/fail situation. At the end of the day, "nearly compliant" equals "non-compliant," which means management has two choices: Stop selling to Europe or put the product on the market and take a chance.
"What happens if the company is 99 percent compliant? By putting the product on the market, you're saying you are compliant," explained Ken Stanvick, senior vice president of Design Chain Associates (San Francisco, Calif.)
The general advice from consultants and legal experts is to stop selling a non-compliant product to the EU. "Even though you've done due diligence, if you're not compliant, don't market your products [in the EU]," said Manuel Suarez, a lawyer at Brussels-based law firm White & Case LLP, which assists manufacturers with RoHS compliance issues.
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