July 22nd 2014 was a critical date for engineers and buyers involved in the medical device manufacturing industry. On this day, the European Union phased in restrictions for the six hazardous substances found in RoHS, and required RoHS II compliance for all medical electronic devices.

Originally, some manufacturers started their RoHS compliance conversions earlier this decade when the initiatives began to cut in. Up to this point however, not all companies have opted for to convert their entire product lines. The Northwest-US based team at Milwaukee Electronics’ Portland, Oregon electronics manufacturing facility recently helped one customer in the dental office equipment industry complete their RoHS conversion in record time.

Having received the RoHS conversion documentation in March, Milwaukee Electronics completed the necessary changes to 32 different assemblies containing 580 separate line items by mid-April. The project also included collecting documentation to support customer requirements under REACH, the regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals – which streamlines and improves the EU’s former legislative framework on chemicals.

In addition to rapidly performing the necessary product conversions, the Milwaukee Electronics team was able to help mitigate the customer’s obsolescence liability.

The product is undergoing compliance testing and production volumes on the new RoHS II compliant product line are expected to increase in the coming months.