What actions to be taken to meet RoHS regulations?

[Andrews]

We are an automotive parts manufacturer supplying to customers in USA, Europe, Asia etc. One of our European customers has given in the purchase order " Parts to comply with RoHS regulations".

While surfing the web I got some information stating that parts should not have more than 0.1% by weight in homogenous material for each of the elements like lead , mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium etc.

Now we use lead upto 0.35% in the free cutting steel used by us and hexavalent chromium is part of passivation process during zinc plating.

As a manufacturer of automotive parts, what actions have to be taken by us to meet this regulations?

Thanks
Andy

[Nissim Shaked]

l2002-95-EC.pdf
Dear Andy,

Please read the Rosh and WEEE directives and see if your
process is according to the directive regulations.
l_03720030213en00240038.pdf

Nissim Shaked

[RosieA]

Andy, typically, companies will undertake a complete review of their BOM and consummables to determine the levels of restricted materials. Anything they find that is non-compliant needs to be replaced with a lead-free (etc) alternative. Sometimes your component suppliers can make recommendations and provide certs, but often you need to have the material testing done by an independent lab if your materials are unique to your product.

Lucky for you, there's an automotive data base for automotive materials. http://www.mdsystem.com/html/en/home_en.htm

I'd run my BOM past this database as a first step.

This can be very time consuming and expensive process. As of July 1 2006, it is EU law, so if you have a lot of EU business, you need to comply.