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Welcome to the April 2020 Design Chain Associates E-mail Newsletter!
In addition to DCA's newsletters, keep an eye on DCA's bi-monthly regulatory-focused column in TTI's MarketEYE Resource Center and our new monthly product development-focused column in EE Times!
If you've received this newsletter and are not on the DCA mailing list and would like to be, please sign up.
My attempt to regularly issue these newsletters has been roundly thwarted, again. I can't say they will be produced at any standard interval but will try to produce them when I have something I believe will be helpful for you.
I hope you have had a chance to test out the prototype version of ECHA's SCIP database. I manually created an article with a declarable amount of an SVHC (everyone's favorite, lead) and, well, it was not exactly a simple and straightforward endeavor.
Given the complexity of most products and finished goods placed on the market in the EU, you generally will not want to be entering Article 33 information into the SCIP database manually when it becomes mandatory at the beginning of next year.
Standards bodies including
ECHA had a good webinar on the SCIP database prototype last month. Watch it here.
By the way, I realize not everyone will get the "Skip to my Lou, my darling" reference, as it is peculiarly American (and yes, we're quite peculiar!).
EE Times has been a seminal weekly magazine for the electronics industry and electronic design engineers for decades. I have been reading it for nearly forty years. It's focus on challenges, techniques, technology and the way forward has inspired engineers around the world to do - and talk about - the amazing work they've done. I'm privileged, and challenged, to now join the ranks of EE Times writers: I will be producing a monthly column on circularity (as in "circular economy") and the electronic product lifecycle process.
Please read my introductory column and let me know your thoughts.
New columns will be available here.
EU RoHS continues to be as active as ever. We finally have a new consolidated version of the Directive, but it is already a year out of date! And the deadline for submitting exemption renewal applications for exemptions expiring in 2021 - which includes many that are commonly used - has passed. Please review my latest column at TTI's MarketEYE Resource Center for more info.
California's Proposition 65 is equally important and certainly as - if not more - confounding to so many manufacturers. My February 2020 column attempts to succinctly describe how to understand and comply with it.
Please let me know if you have any comments or questions.
All of my - and I am sure all of your - conference and meeting travel for the past and next few months has been cancelled, replaced by an online meeting or postponed. The ACS Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference has always been a great place to network and learn about new approaches and new ways to think about environmental and human health safety-related issues you and your industry may have that are being addressed in a potentially useful manner by a different industry. The COVID-19 pandemic has driven the ACS Green Chemistry Institute to rethink its implementation this year from an on-site conference to an online conference and to further make the decision to open it up to the world for free.
If you have never attended this conference but your work involves products, chemical or any sort of product design, compliance, etc. I strongly recommend that you consider reviewing the available sessions and attend any that might be compelling. Along with colleagues from Intel and the US Environmental Protection Agency, I will be co-chairing a session on semiconductors and electronics called "Life Cycle Thinking to Drive Green Chemistry in the Electronics Supply Chain".
As of today there are still some logistics to be worked out but please do check in at the conference website to review the technical sessions and to sign up to receive information on that page, as they will be re-opening registration shortly. Please tell your colleagues who may be interested in attending, too!
Many major Standard Development Organizations including ISO, IEC, IEEE, AFNOR, BSI, DIN and ASTM are offering certain standards relevant in one way or another to the COVID-19 crisis for free. These may be useful to you or your colleagues now or in the future.The American National Standards Institute has collected links to the offerings by these SDOs. Check them out! Hopefully you'll never get a chance like this again (for this reason, anyway)!
Catch-up on past DCA newsletters on our DCA In The News web page!
April 17, 2020 EE Times: Environmental and Health Safety; Electronics and the Circular Economy. Read my new column in EE Times, focused on Design for Circularity! Let me know what you think.
April 14, 2020 TTI MarketEYE: EU and U.S. RoHS Update: Expiring Exemptions and Updated Directives. Keeping up with EU RoHS continues to be challenging. The fantasy of harmonizing RoHS implementations around the world is briefly explored by reviewing RoHS regulations in the USA.
March 5, 2020 Chemical Watch: Tackling the electronic sector's biggest chemical mangagement challenges: Q&A with Michael Kirschner. What do you think? Are these the biggest challenges? Published before the conference was postponed.
February 28, 2020 TTI MarketEYE: California Proposition 65 for Electronics Suppliers and Manufacturers; A Must-Read Washington State Draft Report. The West Coast: Prop 65 and Safer Products
December 17, 2019 TTI MarketEYE: (Brazil) RoHS, a Regrettable Substitution and Conflict Minerals: End-of-Year International Roundup. Nothing slows down because of the prospect of mere holidays.
December 10, 2019 DCA Newsletter: December 2019. Another important stakeholder consultation on EU RoHS proposed substances for restriction and tools for the green chemist.
TBD Fall 2020: Amsterdam, Netherlands Chemicals Management for Electronics Europe 2020. Mike discusses what European manufacturers must understand about California Proposition 65, and chairs a couple sessions.
June 16-19, 2020: Seattle, WA 24th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference. The 2020 GC&E Conference will be presented as a virtual meeting, June 15-19, 2020. The virtual GC&E Conference will be made available free of charge to the global community. More info soon!
More to come! Stay tuned.
We value your feedback and insights on the topics in this newsletter and anything else we're involved with. You can contact us at the number below, or simply reply to this e-mail.
This newsletter covers only a fraction of how we support our clients. DCA offers expertise and consulting services in all the areas covered above, as well as many others. Please contact us to discuss your needs.
Best Regards,
Michael Kirschner
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