Vendors Line Up to Offer RoHS Help

"OEMs and component suppliers are struggling to comply with European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive. With the RoHS deadline looming – July 1, 2006 – OEMs are requesting compliance data from their suppliers in one format, and the suppliers are often delivering the information in a different format. Plus, the data requested by the OEM is often not the same data that the supplier delivers. To make matters worse, some of the data is delivered with mistakes, if not downright false information. “In a rush to keep their customers happy, suppliers answer the OEM’s questions, but too frequently with incorrect and possibly fraudulent answers,” said Eric Karofsky, senior analyst at AMR Research Inc. in Boston. “This is such a problem that several OEMs say they are finding mistakes and inconsistencies in about 50 percent of suppliers’ responses.”" Source: reed-electronics.com