Metabo - Automated SCIP Database Notification

Metabowerke GmbH in Nürtingen is a tradition-rich manufacturer of power tools for metal processing for professional users and industry as well as in construction and renovation. Metabo is known for their powerful cordless tools and is the leading supplier in the cordless segment with its LiHD technology.

The brand name Metabo offers a full-range supply of high-quality machines and accessories for all general applications, as well as specialist products and system solutions for special requirements.

CHALLENGE

Growing Number of Regulations

International standards and regulations are placing increasingly demanding requirements on the product approval and certification process. These include material regulations such as RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) or REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals). Not only salable products are affected, but also accessories, spare parts, and marketing articles.

With tighter regulations in place, companies like Metabo face huge challenges. For one, with a growing product portfolio, the complexity of products increases (more parts, more complex components). Additionally, entering new markets means dealing with new regulations (e.g. China-RoHS, UAE-RoHS, California Proposition 65). On top of that, the regulations themselves are becoming more complex. With each version, the review periods are becoming shorter and shorter.

LÖSUNG

SAP Product and REACH COMPLIANCE

Very early on, Metabo recognized that a manual process of analyzing each material in Bill-of-Materials can no longer be handled efficiently. This is why for ensuring material compliance, the company relies on SAP Product and REACH Compliance. The software helps companies with compliance assessments based on existing information from their SAP ERP system.

The software automatically generates product structures based on Bill-of-Materials, SAP material master, and purchasing information, that are used for compliance checks. Compliance checks are performed against regulatory lists maintained in the substance list management of SAP Product and REACH Compliance.

The software reacts to all relevant changes in the product structure (engineering changes, supplier changes,...) or in the legal regulations and automatically carries out reassessments of product compliance. Thus, the compliance status and any data gaps can be quickly identified and appropriate measures can be taken.

Reporting to the SCIP Database with opesus

With the extended Waste Framework Directive (WFD), companies are obliged to report information on Substances of Very High Concern (SVHCs) in their products to the SCIP database of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) since January 5, 2021.

The requirements of the SCIP database go well beyond the existing information requirements such as Article 33 of the EU REACH. In addition to the SVHC substances, information on complex articles, article categories, concentrations and material categories must be provided for each declarable article of a product. SCIP database notifications must be made for each legal entity of a company that places a product on the EU market.

SCIP product notifications must be constantly updated, for example when:

design-related changes
changes in the supply chain
changes to the REACH candidate list.

For Metabo, it was clear: given their complex products and extensive product portfolio, manually reporting to the SCIP database is out of the question.

opesus Solution - Integration with SAP

When looking for a solution to manage submissions to the SCIP database, Metabo compared various software solutions in detail. In the end, the decision was made in favor of opesus EPN. The decisive factors were:

the perfect SAP ERP integration, together with the possibility of reusing existing data
the ability to transfer SCIP dossiers for all legal entities directly to ECHA via the system-to-system interface
the high degree of automation and user-friendliness.

The SCIP dossiers are automatically generated based on existing compliance data and product structures. These are enriched with additional data, such as the customs tariff numbers stored in the SAP material master as the basis for the required article categories in the SCIP database.

opesus EPN for the SCIP format supports the generation of SCIP dossiers according to the "Representative Article Approach" of ECHA. This enabled Metabo to find a flexible and comprehensive solution for handling purchased parts that are supplied from multiple suppliers and have different substance declarations.

Notifications by Parent Company

Assigning the various Metabo subsidiaries as reporting legal entities to the affected products takes place automatically. Metabo opted for the approach of submitting the initial notifications via the parent company first. The subsidiaries then submit notifications via the Simplified SCIP Notification (SSN) approach where they refer to the parent company's notification. This not only reduces the volume of data, but also simplifies updates to the SCIP notifications, as only the parent company's dossier needs to be regenerated in the event of changes and the other notifications are updated automatically.

SCIP Notification - Easy to handle with opesus EPN and SAP

"Metabo strives to market only safe and environmentally friendly products that comply with all relevant regulations. To comply with this maxim, Metabo uses software-based solutions, including SAP Product and REACH Compliance. Due to the requirement to notify products for every legal entity in the EU in the SCIP database, the logical requirement arose to transfer the data available in SAP to SCIP via a system-to-system solution (S2S). With EPN from opesus, a solution was found which, as a fully SAP-integrated solution, met Metabo's requirements perfectly and completely. With EPN, it was possible to notify the notifications for Metabo and all its subsidiaries in SCIP and to manage the data quickly and efficiently with regard to pending and upcoming changes without any significant additional effort."

Mr. Keller
PD/Q-S Product Compliance

The SAP-based software integrates seamlessly into the existing SAP Product Compliance solution and other processes and data in the SAP system.

"opesus delivers the solution in just a few transports and provides us with regular updates without us having to worry about interface changes in detail in IT. The excellent documentation also contributes to the fact that opesus EPN for EU SCIP is easy to install and easy to operate."

Mr. Schauflinger
Team Leader SAP ERP

The process automation in opesus EPN ensures that all relevant changes are automatically registered and processed in SAP ERP and in the SAP Product Compliance solution. Therefore, SCIP dossiers are always up to date. Manual effort is considerably reduced and the risk of non-compliance is effectively prevented.

Metabo's Path to an Integrated and Fully Automated SCIP Database Notification

About Metabo