Are you ready for WEEE?
Graham Sharpe, CEO of In2grate Business Solutions, outlines the importance of being geared up for the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive.

The manufacturing sector is an important contributor to a nation's health and wellbeing. It provides careers for engineers, shop floor personnel, field sales executives and business professionals at all levels, and its products enrich our lives in some way every hour of every day. However, despite all these advantages, we cannot ignore the environmental impact manufactured items can have, particularly when their useful life comes to an end and responsible disposal becomes the key issue.

Take the electronics sector. It is estimated that European consumers and businesses throw away more than six million tonnes of unwanted electronic equipment every year, which has been identified as one of the fastest growing waste streams in the EU, representing 4% of municipal waste today and increasing by 16~28% every five years. Add to this the fact that lifecycles of items such as mobile phones and PC's become ever shorter, the problem looks set to spiral.

In an attempt to make electronic manufacturers and distributors more responsible for the disposal of the products they produce, the European parliament has announced the WEEE Directive (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), which is intended to encourage the disposal of products in an environmentally responsible way at the end of their useful life. Under this legislation, manufacturers of such products are obliged to manage (and pay for) the collection and disposal of the goods they produce, free of charge to the consumer.

In the light of WEEE, manufacturers will have a mandatory requirement to manage the complete end of life cycle for all products they have produced or distributed. The message is clear and unambiguous; the producer must pay for the disposal of their product. From January 2007, you need to be able to track and audit the source of components and materials used, or face the full cost of disposal yourself.

One of the benefits the WEEE Directive will bring is to give companies the impetus they need to concentrate time and effort to resolve an area of business that is a financial drain every day of the year. We all know that, irrespective of End-of-Life legislation, electronic goods are returned to the manufacturer for any number of reasons; either for service or repair, or as overstocks from the retailer. The logistical processes by which this is managed are rarely well thought out. While most of the energies of the organisation are focused upon sales and fulfilment, the management of returns is still seen as a back office function, an added cost in the supply chain that is dealt with in a haphazard manner.

So, today's businesses must develop an efficient business model to manage End-of-Life disposal. While legislation will make it necessary for them to do so, the potential for revenue recovery will drive new solutions. At the same time, common sense should dictate that the entire returns handling processes be addressed, building complementary procedures and networks.

In the case of some manufacturers the importance of, indeed the very subject of, the WEEE Directive is not fully embraced and understood. However, the cost of burying one's head in the sand will be too dear a price to pay. The good news is that there are solutions that can not only ensure your business is WEEE compliant, but also turn your company into a more effective, organised and time-efficient machine. In terms of software, a fully joined-up Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution can take the away the headache of product and component traceability, so important if each component has to be returned to the manufacturer after product demise in line with the WEEE Directive.

With such a system, all relevant personnel can have quick access via an extranet to any product and component data. This data could, for example, point to potential material suppliers, currently used materials, specifications and material composition of individual parts, production process information, costings and maintenance contract information. Concerns surrounding the WEEE Directive aside, enormous amounts of time can be wasted re-typing Bill of Materials (BoM) into your ERP system. This can result in mistakes, whilst anything that remains can be spent answering questions and helping other people from other departments to find the information they are looking for. It is no wonder many design and manufacture SMEs have little or no time left to develop new products. With PLM and its fully 'joined-up' methodology, many of these problems are eradicated.

With the right configuration or customisation, a state-of-the-art PLM solution can also help designers and manufacturers to be more environmentally responsible and aware. For example, such a system can help them to chose quickly from a selection of environmentally friendly and regulation-compliant materials when designing a product or choosing the packaging materials. Certain materials might, for instance, be more easily recycled at the end of product life, or more be known to be less environmentally harmful during their useful life.

Interestingly, another key advantage of such a system is the potential energy and paper saved by the manufacturer itself through the use of such an automated joined-up software tool as opposed to pockets of design data etc. held on different systems. The historic problem has been the inefficient way staff have often distributed paper print-outs to other departments because these departments had no connected system affording them instant visibility to key data on their computer. Savings in energy and paper usage are not only good for the environment, they are also excellent for an organisation's bottom line and in contributing to the ROI on the cost of a PLM system.

In essence, PLM can aid the knowledge and communication process related to everything from CAD/design to environmentally responsible disposal, through to health and safety measures. Such a tool can also put a designer and manufacturer in a much better position to comply with the WEEE Directive. The speed with which relevant information can be accessed and digested can all add-up to a more environmentally aware, safe and cost-effective work plan for the designer and manufacturer. Companies need to act now in order to ensure they are compliant in 2006. The alternative could be very costly indeed.