Precience Inc., a privately held Silver Spring company, has developed new software to help computer manufacturers comply with the increasingly complex environmental rules governing their products.
There are some six or seven “green” compliance standards for electronic parts and products worldwide, said Ahmad Khan, Precience enterprise product manager, including new rules this month in the 25-nation European Union. Japan also has restrictions and China’s become effective Jan. 1.
“[The set of EU rules] affects $50 billion worth of U.S. exports [annually] because it affects the entire U.S. electronics industry … ,” said a EU specialist at the U.S. Department of Commerce who asked not to named. He added that EU could further tighten its standards.
“Now the question is, how is it going to be enforced?” he said.
Known as the Tornado Environmental Management Compliance, the $10,000 basic package (average installation is $75,000) is designed to automate tracking of the minute details that determine whether a product meets environmental laws in foreign markets.
The kind of products covered by such laws include a computer’s inner workings and less obvious items like cables, keyboards and casings.
In the United States, Khan said, only California has passed legislation restricting the use of certain environmentally hazardous components and chemicals in equipment materials. Those regulations will come into effect on the 1st of next year — other states may follow suit.
“So any electronic manufacturer that hopes to do business in California, better be compliant by January 2007,” Khan said.
Khan, who co-founded the 20-employee Precience, said that Tornado provides an “aggressive analysis” of a product’s compliance profile against all current standards, including those of California. The software, currently undergoing customer trials and tweaking, generates reports of its assessments and a record for auditors.
