The IEC 62474 International Material Declaration standard was revised in 2018 as part of a periodic review. The revised International Standard was published in November 2018, introducing several new capabilities based on emerging regulatory requirements, user feedback, and the needs of other industries. This included a new Declaration for Compliance module and additional support for EU REACH compliance and the upcoming EU Substance of Concern in Products (SCIP) database. The changes were also intended to make the standard more useful to industries other than the electrotechnical products. This had been requested by National Committees who intended to use the standard across a broad range of industries from the chemicals through all downstream manufacturers
Adoption of IEC 62474 as European and National Standards
IEC 62474 has been adopted as the European standard for material declaration (EN 62474). It’s also been adopted as National Standards by several other countries including Japan, China, and Brazil.
Support for Supplier Declaration for EU SCIP Database
The revised IEC 62474 standard was developed to meet a variety of global regulations including emerging requirements under the EU REACH regulation and the EU Waste Framework Directive (WFD). The EU Substances of Concern (SCIP) database was a focus area given that it would be a challenging requirement for manufacturers and suppliers. The updated IEC 62474 Data Exchange Format (DXF) (version X8.00 released in April 2019) included such features as the isArticle flag, support for safe use instructions, an identifier field, material classification (e.g. categories).
At the end of Fall of 2019, the European Chemical Agency released the final SCIP information requirements and the XML Schema that will be used by manufacturers, importers and distributers to make submissions into the EU SCIP database. The specifications include several new data requirements that supply chains do not typically report and will be a challenge for many industries, especially those that still require the use of SVHCs because there are no technical alternates for many applications. This include electrical/electronics, automotive, aerospace, defense and heavy equipment.
The IEC 62474 Validation Team (VT62474) is currently finalizing a minor update to the Data Exchange to ensure effective support for the extra data fields for SCIP, especially the mandatory data fields. The VT is doing this by adding generic data fields wherever possible so that they can be used for SCIP and other future regulations that may require similar information disclosure. No changes are required in the IEC 62474 document; changes are only needed in the XML schema and the Developer’s Table which can both be updated using the expedited IEC database management process.
Publication of the update (which will be revision X8.10) is expected in February 2020).
Note: The VT62474 still needs to formally approve the updates to the data exchange format; some of the features described below are already part of the X8.00, but some features should be considered preliminary until they are officially published on the IEC 62474 database.
SCIP Support in Composition Declaration and Declaration for Compliance
The declaration format now includes separate declaration modules for ‘compliance’ and ‘composition declaration’ – the Declaration for Compliance module was one of the new features added in IEC 62474:2018 (see Figure 1). Supply Chain communication for SCIP will be supported in both of these declaration modules.
Figure 1: IEC 62474 Material Declaration Hierarchy and Declaration Modules
Both the composition and compliance modules provide a flag (true/false) that enables the responder (the supplier) to indicate that the declaration includes the mandatory information needed for a downstream manufacturer to submit into the SCIP database. For both declarations, the flag is named “isSCIPComplete”.
Technical Support on IEC 62474
ECD Compliance provides consulting support and training to manufacturers, suppliers and solution providers on the emerging capabilities of IEC 62474 and the supply chain requirements for the EU SCIP database. Contact ECD Compliance for additional information.