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RoHS Challenges MRO Parts

By Rob Spiegel -- Electronic News, 5/25/2006

Those engineers buying parts for maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) haven’t worried much about the switch to lead-free parts. MRO is exempt from the European Union’s (EU) Restrictions of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) legislation. Yet lately, MRO engineers are beginning to find that the industry move to RoHS compliance has sneaked into their supply chain and changed their parts.

Even though MRO is exempt, much of the parts used for repair and maintenance are the same parts that are used in production. So they’re going lead free. “We find that even suppliers or MRO parts are coming out with RoHS-compliant parts,” said Paul Tallentire, president of Newark InOne, a Chicago-based distributor small production and MRO parts. “Initially MRO customers in the United States thought they were exempt, but now they know they will be impacted.”

For one thing, a good portion of the leaded parts they’re been buying are getting discontinued. Many of the parts suppliers that have developed lead-free versions of their parts plan to phase out their non-compliant, leaded production. “Many of our suppliers are making their non-compliant parts obsolete,” said Tallentire. “We’re seeing the biggest obsolescence move we’ve ever seen in this industry.”

To alert buyers of parts obsolescence, Newark InOne has a Product Watch program that sends out notices to all buyers who have purchased the part in the past year. This allows the buyer to snatch up remaining non-compliant inventory, if it’s available.

The reason for the increase in end-of-life notices is that parts suppliers are anticipating that the future demand will be for lead-free parts, because other countries are passing environmental laws similar to the EU’s RoHS. Thus, there will be a smaller demand for the non-compliant parts used by MRO engineers. “There is the issue of lower volume production for leaded parts, and that’s a concern for some suppliers,” explained Eric Karofsky, senior analyst at AMR Research Inc. in Boston. “The lower-volume production is a different business model.” For many suppliers the lower-volume production is simply not profitable.

Another problem facing MRO engineers is the backwards compatibility of RoHS-compliant parts. Lead-free components require a higher reflow temperature than leaded parts, which can cause some problems for those who use lead-free parts in manufacturing. “Backwards compatibility is a real issue,” Newark InOne’s Tallentire said. “Some of our suppliers are real clear on backwards compatibility – they provide data sheets about reflow temperatures – while other suppliers don’t give any data at all.”

Ultimately, it’s the OEM whose product needs spare parts that may get the brunt of problem with backwards compatibility. “One of the issues with backwards compatibility is with OEMs and those holding service contracts,” remarked AMR’s Karofsky. “If there is a problem with backwards compatibility, it’s the OEM whose brand is affected.”

Karofsky noted the issue of backwards compatibility can be addressed through testing. Yet testing can be a problem if the replacement parts are being used by a service company rather than the OEM. “The folks in the MRO services group won’t necessarily have the opportunity to test the part in the product,” said Karofsky. “All they can do is track the analytics of breakage to determine if there is a problem with backwards compatibility.”