Compliance with regulations and rules is a mandatory part of a functioning system, but it can become a hassle especially if multiple regulations require meeting at once. Several non-automotive compliance regulations need to be met by the supplying company to its customers. Some common European and American compliance regulations are REACH, RoHS, Prop65, TSCA, SCIP, ADR, MDR, EU Battery, etc. Each compliance regulation has a backstory that can be summed up below:

Summary of Non-Automotive Compliance Regulations

While the automotive and automotive aftermarket has their industrial standards, the non-automotive sector has certain base rules to be complied with. The regulations may be ocean-deep due to their in-depth information and rules to comply with. As mentioned above, though compliance regulations are wide in number, the primary motive behind them is to restrict, prevent, and notify the user of certain dangerous substances in the making of consumer products.

For example: REACh compliance- short for ‘registration, evaluation, authorization, and restriction of chemicals, as per the implementation of European union targets toward improving human health by restricting certain chemicals that are used for everyday and non-everyday activities.

While Prop 65 compliance, officially recognized as ‘The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986’ was enacted to protect drinking water from getting contaminated by harmful chemicals that can cause cancer, birth defects, and other related health issues. It requires California-specific citizens to be notified about the harmful chemicals used.

Other regulations like RoHS, SCIP, TSCA, and ADM deal with restrictions on the usage of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic components. It was first enacted in 2006 with 6 chemicals as the main- namely- lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadmium, polybrominated biphenyl, and polybrominated diphenyl ether.

In 2013, RoHS compliance increased its scope by adding more products like electric cables and spare parts. SCIP focuses on Improving safety for waste operators. 

SCIP compliance targets to eliminate the usage of SVHCs and replace them with safer alternatives. A specific threshold of 0.1% w/w is allotted for the usage of such chemicals.

TSCA concentrates on the reduction of health hazards to the public due to the usage of factory chemicals to control the risks imposed by exposure to certain chemicals, their manufacturing, and usage. Those substances include asbestos, formaldehyde, lead, PCBs, mercury, and some hexavalent chromium compounds.

ADM, short for ‘Animal Derived Materials', deals with substances derived from the flesh or body of an animal. The ADM or ADIs are obtained after the processing and purification of animal parts. It is stressed by FDA to understand the potential contamination by livestock processing establishments, where ADMs are brought to life. The risks associated with ADM vary based on organs and body parts used to manufacture chemicals. Every seller should ensure their suppliers adhere to the compliance regulations and submit relevant proofs of compliance from time to time. 

Adherence to Multiple Compliance Regulations 

Compliance with multiple regulations at the same time may be a hassle especially if the process is done manually. Manual compliance can take several days to process on its own- especially if there are multiple regulations to comply with at once. The costs and effort will be high, while the return may be low. To exemplify, the time spent on manual processing may be dedicated to other tasks that could lead to better returns to the business. There may also be breakage in workflow due to the inability to concentrate on other tasks, which will affect other work processes. 

Also, there are high chances of committing mistakes during manual processing, as having a track of long process is hard to keep up with. All these mandate organizations with little or no time or in need of streamlined compliance regulation processing to opt for compliance software. Compliance software evades upkeeping of minute details while processing and avoids the monotony of processing. A good compliance software takes care of end-to-end compliance processing and may have the option to be customized as per compliance needs in the beginning. It is to be noted that certain software is specifically made for one particular regulation, while certain compliance software has the benefiting option to process different compliance regulations.  

Conclusion 

You may be interested in our subscription-based SaaS model GreenCheck software if you would want to process multiple compliance regulations with complete customizations as to additions, altering, and altering the regulations to comply with. The software is suited for all non-automotive industries but suits the automotive industry specifically for SCIP compliance. It has a single bird-eye's view dashboard to view all compliance regulations. Our compliance software comes at competitive pricing and assured performance quality. We also can provide a dedicated resource for operating the software on the requirement.  

Apart from the above, we also provide services for REACH, RoHS, SCIP, IMDS, and more. APA Engineering has rich modules of compliance software and services. Reach out to us if you would like to know more about GreenCheck software or any compliance services.