continued

Maladra: It can be a burden for any engineering department. It overloads their manpower to spend the time [to make these changes], in addition to what they’re already expected to be doing to develop new products. They have been pretty much reactive to RoHS. That’s where we saw an opportunity— to be able to go to these engineering departments and say we understand what you're trying to accomplish and we’re here to help you do your job.

 

eepn2: Do you see any of the other European Union-generated environmental directives having an impact on your operations? Maladra: I think some of the WEEE [the Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive, which imposes strict regulations on the way electronics equipment can be disposed] will become more pertinent because they expand on the existing process controls we have and will grow the amount of substances we have to be wary of.

 

eepn2: Are you still producing leaded as well as lead-free products? Anninos: Some industries are exempt from the RoHS lead-free requirements, but the trick is in being able to do both. Our customers who require RoHS-compliant products are going to get that, but we still have the leaded products. It’s the process management we have in place that enables us to provide the products our customers want.

eepn2: Have you dropped or cancelled

projects or programs because the price differential in RoHS-compliance made it impractical to sell anything into the European market? Maladra: That’s one of the reasons we have been so proactive in getting this certification. We wanted to be in a position to guarantee that whatever comes out of our facility is RoHS-compliant. The problem we have to deal with now is the lack of understanding of the RoHS directive by some of our customers. They don’t see the difference between what our competition tells them in terms of their ability to provide RoHS-compliant products and what we can do for them. We spent a lot to get this certification, yet it’s hard to get much of a premium because we’re in such a cost-sensitive industry. We have to be competitive. Sometimes we win those [price] battles and sometimes we don’t. The danger for customers is that they could get burned at the border.

 

eepn2: Has this actually happened? Maladra: We had a customer recently—a good-sized company—that split its manufacturing business between us and a competitor. Both of us were producing RoHS-compliant printed circuit board assemblies. The customer ran into some trouble at the border and now we’re testing our competitor’s product and telling them why it’s not RoHS-compliant. As a result, we think we’ll be getting more business from that customer—business we weren’t getting before. You don’t want to have your container shipped backed to the United States. You have to make sure what you’re doing is right in the first place.

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