{"id":10821,"date":"2024-11-25T09:50:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T08:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/?p=10821"},"modified":"2024-11-26T15:55:33","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T14:55:33","slug":"compliance-is-a-must","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/2024\/11\/compliance-is-a-must\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cCompliance Is a\u00a0Must\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The goal of the \u201cE2E \u2013 Material Usage Compliance Program\u201d is to make sure FST offers clean, non-hazardous products \u2013 and meet that \u00adobjective efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Dr. Meike Rinn\u00adbauer talks about \u201csafe materials\u201d and \u201csafe products,\u201d she is not necessarily referring to handling or quality issues. To her, \u201csafe\u201d means that all the raw materials in use, especially chemicals, satisfy the relevant legal standards. \u201cThe goal is to develop materials that comply with current and future regulations and guidelines,\u201d she said. As Global Process Owner (GPO) Material Compliance at Freudenberg Sealing Technologies (FST), she deals with these matters every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In practice, guaranteeing this \u201cmaterial compliance\u201d is anything but easy. The number of national and international regulations and guidelines is growing steadily worldwide. The issues call to mind the 10,000 per- and polyfluorinated (PFAS) chemicals that are drawing attention today. PFAS are persistent, meaning that they do not degrade in the environment. Some are dangerous or suspected of causing damage to people and the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

REACH is the European body of rules governing the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals. It is a regulatory regime to which FST pays the greatest possible attention. Rinnbauer\u2019s position on REACH could not be clearer: \u201cMaterial compliance is not simply \u2018nice to have.\u2019 It is a \u2018must.\u2019 We have to guarantee that our materials, and the products made from them, meet the legal requirements in the respective sales markets,\u201d This is true \u201cend to end\u201d (E2E), from the raw material to the product, and from the compound\u2019s development to its disposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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FST has to ensure that the raw materials it uses, and the products made from them, meet legal requirements in their respective sales markets\u00a0\u2013 from the raw material to the product, and from the development of the compound to its disposal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

New E-Learning Course<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is all the more important to have processes that guarantee compliance with the law. FST is delving deeply into these matters with its \u201cE2E \u2013 Material Usage Compliance Program.\u201d But there is a flip side: These efforts require well-informed employees throughout the company who are aware of their personal responsibility. A newly designed e-learning program is expected to increase awareness of these issues and help to close gaps in knowledge. It is expected to begin late this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to processes: In lean workshops in recent months \u2013 six in the United States, one in Germany \u2013 teams led by Jeanne Dellinger have taken a close look at how the seven FST facilities are meeting their material compliance obligations. Dellinger, the E2E Business Process Manager, is an expert on product lifecycle processes. Based on these reviews, so-called \u201cto-be\u201d processes are being developed over the next few months. The basic idea is that a harmonization or standardized process would emerge. It would create the foundation to improve, and more fully automate, process steps FST-wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One Compound \u2013 One Material Number<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of FST\u2019s challenges relates to the fact that materials in the SAP system \u2013 depending on the form into which they are processed or further processed in a lead center \u2013 are not uniformly labeled. If the materials are in the form of a cord, strip, plate or semi-finished product, they carry a different SAP item number. Until now, compliance attributes such as REACH or RoHS (for the use of certain hazardous material in electric and electronic devices) have been assigned individually to each of these numbers again and again. And it has been done manually \u2013 which is labor-intensive and prone to error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A solution based on so-called \u201cumbrella compounds\u201d has been identified. It involves networking the existing FST elastomer database with the SAP system. Irrespective of any ongoing processing, a material is always tied to its original article number and to all related information. A \u201ccleansing\u201d process for the project is now underway. \u201cAs a first step, we need clean data so the information can be carried over,\u201d Rinnbauer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artificial intelligence (AI) and digitalization are expected to help manage the flood of material compliance issues. They should also help to reduce the number of process steps and increase standardization. That is the path to an efficient, compliant operation under a wide range of existing and new regulations and guidelines, Rinnbauer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, there could be a\u00a0chatbot to answer associates\u2019 questions about REACH, and IT systems could calculate a\u00a0material\u2019s CO2<\/sub> footprint. The first stage involves the use of intelligent software to automate manual activities in the process chain, guaranteeing consistent, secure processes.<\/p>\n

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\r\n \r\n <\/i>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/span>\r\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The goal of the \u201cE2E \u2013 Material Usage Compliance Program\u201d is to make sure FST offers clean, non-hazardous products \u2013 and meet that \u00adobjective efficiently. When Dr. Meike Rinn\u00adbauer talks about \u201csafe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[372,680,78],"tags":[674],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"class_list":["post-10821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-digitalization","category-manchester-us-en","category-weinheim-en","tag-edition-01_2025-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10829,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10821\/revisions\/10829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10821"},{"taxonomy":"powerkit_post_featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/powerkit_post_featured?post=10821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}