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EN 50581 – New Management Standard for ROHS2 Technical Document

On July 21st 2011 the directive 2011/65/EU (referred to as RoHS2.0) became European Law and will be implemented in EU Member States from January 3rd 2013. The European Commission initiated a process to develop a harmonized standard to guide manufacturers on their way to correct technical documentation. This standard EN 50581:2012 was made available on September 21st 2012 by CENELEC and will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union soon.

The aim of the standard is to specify the technical documentation that the manufacturer needs to compile in order to declare compliance with the applicable substance restrictions. The standard’s key elements of the technical documentation are:
     - A general description of the product
     -Documents for materials, parts and/or sub-assemblies
     -Information connecting the technical documents and respective materials, parts and/or sub-assemblies
     -A list of harmonized standards and/or technical specifications used to prepare the technical documents

The most important and critical part is obviously the documentation of materials, parts, and/or sub-assemblies with relevance to restricted substance information. The standard gives guidance on:
     -What tasks a manufacturer needs to engage in
     -How to decide on relevant information
     -What relevant information to gather
     -How to evaluate the information
     -What review process to follow

Additionally the document shows a process scheme a manufacturer shall follow for the technical documentation as well as the relationship between Directive 2011/65/EU Article 7(b), Standard EN 50581, and the technical documentation.

For more information:
http://www.cenelec.eu/dyn/www/f?p=104:110:2899059442382612::::FSP_PROJECT,FSP_LANG_ID:23432,25

2011/65/EU:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:174:0088:0110:EN:PDF