Tyco Electronics resolves materials disclosures with PLM software

The company implemented MatrixOne’s Materials Compliance Central solution to simplify and automate the growing nightmare for companies needing to create material declarations for customers concerned with green issues and regulations. Tyco Electronics has more than 3,000 engineers globally, and some 500,000 part numbers, most of which will ultimately need a material declaration for the wide range of industries it serves throughout North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Hitherto, Tyco was using hundreds of engineers filling out product material spreadsheets by hand – a time consuming and repetitive task, with engineers in different regions calling the same suppliers for the same data. The new system now collects material content information from Tyco’s 15,000 suppliers and organises it in a global compliance data repository for employees everywhere to use. “MCC gives people who are purchasing materials the global visibility they need into our supplier network,” says Greg Summers, Tyco Electronics manager, enterprise engineering systems. “That’s important because some of our customers won’t accept products without accurate material declarations.” “Materials declaration is a growing administrative burden,” warns Mike Zepp, director of Material Compliance Solutions at what’s now called Enovia MatrixOne. “MCC gives companies like Tyco Electronics a central mechanism for producing comprehensive material declarations without consuming engineering resources to duplicate information that has already been gathered elsewhere in the organisation.”