Up to Snuff

This article highlights that companies find that “product lifecycle management” can mean steering through the regulatory tangle of their business. The automotive industry is particularly affected by changing legislation, because many automakers are now working to ensure that their vehicles comply with the End-of-Life Vehicle Directive passed by the European Union in 2000. The End-of-Life Vehicle Directive is only one of the rules and regulations in Europe. The EU’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive set environmental targets for the amount of hazardous materials that can be contained in electrical and electronic equipment. Sometimes an engineer can’t simply call up a CAD file for a part, because the company gets that part from a supplier and incorporates it into the final product. In these cases, it's vital to ensure that those parts meet vital standards. Ensuring that engineering products meet the plethora of existing codes and laws is a perplexing and complex task that is only going to get harder.