Product Stewardship: Avoiding Six Key Pitfalls
Elements of product stewardship appear in many different forms within organizations. Stewardship can be woven into a quality program or a quality management system; it can be called product take back or EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility); it can be core to a business’s success or simply a customer requirement.
For clarity, in this article we are using the following EPA definition of Product Stewardship since it is general enough to cover most all industries.
"Product stewardship is a product-centered approach to environmental protection. Also known as extended product responsibility (EPR), product stewardship calls on those in the product life cycle—manufacturers, retailers, users, and disposers—to share responsibility for reducing the environmental impacts of products."
At EORM we work with many companies to develop their Product Stewardship programs. And, as a result of those projects, we’ve noticed six key stumbling blocks, or pitfalls, that many companies encounter as they develop and implement their programs and processes.
1. The executive level champion is MIA (missing in action)…
Or there is no executive sponsorship of the program at all. Most mid-level managers don’t have the authority or influence to make the difficult company-wide decisions that are often part of implementation of a product stewardship program. Or they don’t have the holistic view of the business that allows them to look across department or product lines to see all the ramifications that their product stewardship decisions may have.
For example, one multi-national company that EORM consultants have worked with extensively has two distinctly diverse product lines. One line is soft goods; the other, high technology electronics. When we first starting consulting with the company, the electronics line had an extensive product stewardship program that fit squarely with the corporation’s quality management system. The other line, much lower tech (almost old school business), did not. Nobody had the authority to influence decisions across business units. The soft goods product line was sorely missing that executive level champion.
2. Companies are surprised by global regulatory compliance issues.
Many companies suffer setbacks after the product development phase due to a lack of awareness or understanding of current and existing regulations. Or they miss the opportunity to influence future regulations because they don’t track global product compliance issues. Somebody on the team has to have the responsibility to monitor, identify and report on the shifting laws and regulations that could affect, or will long-term impact, the company’s product lifecycle. We also see many companies that only want to stay in the background or go with the flow when it comes to exerting influence regarding proposed laws and regulations centered on product responsibility. Most organizations don’t want to be identified as flag wavers. That’s understandable; why bring undue attention to your product? But those companies miss the opportunity to step forward and influence future regulation. The risk can often be outweighed by the reward.
3. Communication between business units is poor.
Some companies are divided into silos, in other words, individual business units have autonomy but aren’t vertically integrated. These companies often take care of their own product stewardship issues without much communication between business units. Not only can duplication of effort occur, this can lead to missed opportunities, fiscal redundancy, and increased commercial risk. A well-defined product stewardship program opens the lines of communications and creates processes to ensure they stay open.
4. Supply chain requirements can be daunting.
It’s not a perfect world. Corporations that buy your products do not have identical supply chain requirements. Some companies have sophisticated programs that have been in place – tried, true and tested – for many years. They’ve worked with suppliers in a win-win scenario. Other companies are perhaps more inflexible. If management systems are not in place to communicate, track, update and negotiate with a buyer’s supply chain requirements, the risk of missing a requirement—and potentially losing a customer—escalates.
5. You can get carried away with traceability.
Traceability for the components and materials that comprise your
products is wise stewardship. Knowing what those materials are,
where they came from and tracking their conformance is also reasonably
simple. But, for example, knowing the complete chemical breakdown
of every component and setting up a file to trace each certificate
of conformance may be overkill.
Companies can get bogged down in the minutia of traceability and
consume unnecessary budget dollars when a more streamlined approach
may suffice, with no undue risk to the organization.
6. Customer requests can upset the balance.
Most organizations have efficient systems in place to respond to customer requests. However, one business unit within a corporation can respond to a customer request and not realize they are making commitments that other business units may have to follow. (See the lack of communication pitfall mentioned above.) Mid-level managers could be unaware of the impact their short-term solutions to customer requests may have on the entire organization. Organizing a systematic approach to customer requests that relies on consistent messaging and responses is critical to an efficient product stewardship process.
This is just a summary of the major (and a few minor) stumbling blocks we have noticed when companies implement Product Stewardship programs. Hopefully, this information has raised a few warning signs or at least pointed out the biggest traps unsuspecting companies may fall into as they plan their product life cycles.
For other product stewardship resources:
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/reduce/epr/
http://www.productstewardship.us/
http://eerc.ra.utk.edu/clean/nepsi/
http://www.moea.state.mn.us/stewardship/index.cfm
Edition No. 17
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