Get REACH Compliant with EMARS

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Manufacturers need to prepare for the European Union's new chemicals policy, REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals).

Manufacturers who are not REACH ready risk blocked shipments and costly supply chain disruptions.

REACH implications for manufacturers

Understanding the full impact of REACH on your business is not an easy task.

Designed to replace more than 40 existing directives with one overarching regulation, REACH consists of 1,000 pages of legal text and technical annexes. It has been described as one of the most complex texts in the history of the EU.

From a manufacturer's perspective, REACH can be viewed as part of an escalating regulatory trend—one that places increasing responsibility on manufacturers regarding the environmental and health impacts of their products:

From a manufacturer's perspective, REACH can be viewed as part of an escalating regulatory trend.

Scope of REACH regulation

REACH is much larger in scope compared to other EU regulations, such as RoHS and ELV, affecting more industries, more products, and concerning many more substances than either ELV or RoHS:

  • It's been estimated that REACH will eventually ban 1,500 to 3,000 substances of very high concern (SVHC), which will be either authorized or prohibited under the regulation.

These regulatory ideas originated in the EU, but similar regulations are being developed throughout the world. As a result, manufacturers will find it increasingly complex and costly to develop and market globally compliant products.

Preparing for REACH

REACH presents an imposing set of challenges for companies: technical, managerial, and legal. And details of the regulation are still in flux, adding an element of uncertainty. Yet there are steps that manufacturers can do today to begin preparing for REACH.

One step you should do now is to take an inventory of the chemical constituents of your organization's products:

  • What substances are in your products and the direct materials you purchase, what are their concentrations, and what are their exposure scenarios?
  • What likely SVHCs are in your product? The SVHC list will grow over time.
  • What substances will require registration, by you or your suppliers?
  • What can be done to remove at-risk substances from your products?

If you can't accurately answer these questions, your products are at risk. And the costs can be high:

  • Your products—or your customer's products—may be blocked from shipping to Europe.
  • Even if you don't ship products to Europe your supply chain may be at risk.

REACH may impact the cost and availability of many materials you buy.

Reduce costs and risks of failure

What's in your product? It sounds like an easy question, but it's not. It's a daunting business challenge to understand and control the chemical content of your products and the direct materials you purchase from your suppliers.

Collecting the required chemical data from your suppliers, compiling it and aggregating it to analyze all your products throughout their lifecycles are labor intensive, costly, and error-prone tasks.

But rather than using manual processes and spreadsheets for these tasks, consider using automated tools. Depending on the size of your organization and complexity of your products, this could save millions of dollars in operational costs alone. And by getting accurate data faster, you will avoid costly REACH compliance failures in the future.

The EMARS advantage

Synapsis Technology's EMARS™ software solution will help your company comply with REACH and lower the risk of REACH supply chain disruptions.

The EMARS REACH Solution enables users to:

  • Generate an accurate REACH report for any product in minutes, including a comprehensive chemical breakdown of the product and identification of industry SVHCs.
  • Identify REACH risk factors in existing products and in products under development. Drill down and determine what component or material is at risk, setting the stage for prompt corrective action.
  • Perform worst-case analysis on a product, including all multi-sourced material and component permutations of that product. Identify suppliers that present a REACH risk.
  • Manage and improve supplier and product performance with respect to REACH product requirements.
  • Automate REACH data collection. REACH mandates that manufacturers understand the complete chemical breakdown of their products and by extension all the parts and materials they purchase. EMARS automates the collection, validation, and management of this supplier data.
  • Keep up-to-date as the REACH regulation changes. For example, EMARS maintains a complete list of SVHCs which will be updated as official lists are issued and modified in the months ahead.

Get green, stay green—with EMARS.

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