Tyco Electronics Cuts Regulatory Compliance Overhead; Automates Materials Declaration with Dassault Systèmes PLM

ENOVIA MatrixOne Materials Compliance Centraldrives improved productivity, global collaboration, faster compliance

WESTFORD, Mass., USA – November 7, 2006 – Tyco Electronics, one of the world’s largest electronic components manufacturers, has deployed ENOVIA MatrixOne’s Materials Compliance Central™ solution to automate and simplify the creation of material declarations to satisfy growing demands by customers, Dassault Systèmes (DS) (NASDAQ: DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) announced today.

Tyco Electronics is an industry leader in providing products compliant with the European Union’s RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and similar “green” requirements around the world. Increasingly, however, customers demand not only compliance, but detailed material declarations covering both the regulated substances and other substances used in product construction materials. Prior to implementing Materials Compliance Central, Tyco Electronics had hundreds of engineers filling out product material spreadsheets by hand. The system was time consuming and repetitive, with engineers in different regions sometimes calling the same suppliers to get the same information.

Today, ENOVIA MatrixOne Materials Compliance Central (MCC) facilitates the collection and organization of material content information from Tyco Electronics’ 15,000 suppliers in a global compliance data repository. Employees in any region of the world can use MCC to produce documents to satisfy customer demands for information on materials and substances contained in the Tyco Electronics products.

“Now all the information is in a central repository, which eliminates creation of duplicate spreadsheets at different sites,” said Greg Summers, Tyco Electronics manager, enterprise engineering systems. “MCC gives people who are purchasing materials the global visibility they need into our supplier network. That’s important because some of our customers won’t accept products without accurate material declarations.”

“Obtaining detailed material declarations from suppliers is important as Electronics Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) prepare for product compliance regulations…” said Eric Karofsky in the October 2005 AMR Research Alert, ‘The Ghoulish Problem of Content Collection: A Compliance Nightmare.’ Karofsky added, “Companies in the electronics supply chain ultimately need real-time content that is integrated with a robust Product Data Management (PDM) system.”

Tyco Electronics currently has more than 3,000 engineers globally, and approximately 500,000 salable part numbers, most of which should ultimately have a material declaration. Tyco Electronics manufactures and distributes components for industries ranging from aerospace to household appliances, and has taken the various global “green” initiatives very seriously as well as customers’ demands for supporting documentation. It has facilities and suppliers in North America, South America, Europe and Asia, and ships products all over the world. Some customers are asking Tyco Electronics to supply material declarations identifying potentially hazardous substances used in customer’s end products, which range from jet aircraft to household appliances, lighting fixtures, autos and computer monitors.

“Materials declaration is a growing administrative burden,” said Mike Zepp, director, Material Compliance Solutions, ENOVIA MatrixOne.  “MCC gives companies like Tyco Electronics a central mechanism for producing comprehensive material declarations without consuming valuable engineering resources to duplicate information that has already been gathered elsewhere in the organization.”

 

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