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Unlike GDPR some time ago, Digital Product Passports (DPP) will impact Production too. Extensively, even. At least as long as what you produce is destined for the EU-market, either as finished products or as inputs, sooner or later, for products that finally are to be sold in the EU.
The DPP regulation will come into force from end of 2027, starting in some industries, for others to be added gradually. Once implemented, it will not be permitted to sell products without a valid DPP in the EU - like trying to sell a car without wheels.
Last week we published the first part on this topic, covering:
Initially – A Mad Scramble for Data on Environmental Impact
After Compliance Comes Competing
Here we continue exploring other long term effects for people working in Production plus a special aspect for process industries.
Added Reporting Needs
DPP:s need to be kept up-to-date and data will need continual verification. In other words, as soon as anything is changed in the production process, you will need to evaluate its environmental parameters. Or rather, you will need to do it when evaluating making that change, not to negatively impact your environmental performance without a compelling reason.
Changing energy supplier? Evaluate! Changing volumes? Evaluate! And so on. And maybe update the DPP data.
If any maintenance work impacts environmental performance, that will need to be taken into account, too. For instance the part you are changing might be upgraded or upgrades the entire system to perform better.
Such updates add yet another complexity. You need to keep track of which items were produced before and after each change, as their DPP data might not be the same.
Looking at it positively, you will have a reason to be more on top of your production details than ever before.
Asset Management
Could you even make your DPP system report into your Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system? Why not? Which value could be added in your business? If maintenance and service is part of the heart of your business, you probably need to pose the question: - What are the preferred capabilities of a DPP supplier? Choose wisely we would say. Not every DPP system will let you easily report on events that at first glance is not looking like DPP compliance.
Who knows, as the increased digitisation of all you inputs brought by DPP, it might very well that mundane commodities can turn into traceable assets?
Potentially Big Changes for Process Industries
A special dilemma which we have brought up in Commodities from multiple suppliers - how will that be dealt with? is those cases, primarily in process industries, where you might use commodities. from different suppliers interchangeably. Plastic granulates from more than one supplier, for example. If they are equivalent for the resulting product but different from the perspective of environmental impact, how will you deal with that? We don't know the answer, but it's a dilemma in need of a solution.
Will you have to keep track of which supplier's granulate is used for which batches and assign them different DPP's? Or will you just mix them and use the least favourable environmental data for the DPP, just because you see no better way to handle it? "Better safe than sorry", sort of?
If you choose the first approach, you will have to differentiate them in all systems and maybe rebuild your infrastructure and processes to remove all risks of them getting mixed accidentally.
Image by MTStock Studio on iStock
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