JP2009211687A - Environmental load safety determining device, environmental load safety determining method, and environmental load safety determining program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce human labor and to decide a determined result early by carrying out determining operation of environmental load safety. <P>SOLUTION: An environmental load safety determining device includes: an environmental load information receiving means for receiving environmental load information for every chemical substance included in a component; an environmental load information storage means for storing environmental load information received from the environmental load information receiving means; a chemical substance information storage means for storing information on the quantity, supposed to be safe, of every chemical substance; a safety determining means for determining the safety of the component based on the information stored in the environmental load information storage means and the information stored in the chemical substance information storage means; and a safety determined result display means for displaying the safety determined result determined by the safety determining means. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a technique for determining environmental safety of chemical substances contained in parts constituting a product such as an MFP (Multi Function Printer).

  In response to the recent increase in environmental awareness, the European RoHS (Restriction on Hazardous Substances) Directive (such as cadmium, mercury, lead, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl, Regulations such as those that limit the use of polybrominated diphenyl ethers) have been strengthened. Along with this, companies that manufacture products have more opportunities to make inquiries from customers, such as whether a given product can be brought into a specific area. It is necessary to determine the environmental safety of chemical substances contained in parts.

  Conventionally, these environmental load safety determinations are all performed manually by experts on the basis of information on parts constituting the product.

  As described above, the conventional determination of environmental load safety is performed manually by experts based on the information on the parts constituting the product, and there are a huge number of parts even for one product. In addition to this, since there are many types of products, there is a problem that a great amount of work is required and it takes a long time to determine the determination result.

  The present invention has been proposed in view of the above-described conventional problems, and the object of the present invention is to facilitate the determination work of environmental load safety, thereby reducing human labor and early determination of determination results. It is an object of the present invention to provide an environmental load safety determination device capable of realizing the above.

  In order to solve the above problems, according to the present invention, as described in claim 1, environmental load information receiving means for receiving environmental load information for each chemical substance contained in a component, and safety of the chemical substance Based on the chemical substance information storage means for storing chemical substance information related to the determination criteria, the environmental load information received by the environmental load information reception means, and the chemical substance information stored in the chemical substance information storage means, Environmental load safety judgment, comprising: safety judgment means for judging safety of parts; and safety judgment result display means for displaying a safety judgment result judged by the safety judgment means Device.

  In addition, as described in claim 2, the environmental load safety determination device according to claim 1, wherein the expert determination information stores the environmental load information related to a component for which the safety determination result cannot be determined. An environmental load safety judging device further comprising storage means.

  Further, as described in claim 3, in the environmental load safety determination device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the safety determination means does not contain a predetermined chemical substance in the component, The component is determined to be safe, and when the chemical substance is contained, an excluded use determination is performed for each chemical substance, and the safety of the component is determined based on the excluded use determination. It is an environmental impact safety assessment device.

  In addition, as described in claim 4, the environmental impact safety determination device according to claim 3, wherein the exclusion use determination is based on a purpose of use of the part, a use site, and a content of the chemical substance. Thus, an environmental impact safety determination device is characterized in that safety determination is performed.

  Further, as described in claim 5, in the environmental load safety determination device according to claim 4, when the content of the chemical substance is larger than a threshold value in the exclusion use determination, the chemical substance is It is an environmental load safety judgment device characterized by judging that it is not safe.

  In addition, as described in claim 6, an environmental load information receiving step for receiving environmental load information for each chemical substance contained in a part, and a chemical substance information storage for storing chemical substance information related to safety judgment criteria of the chemical substance A safety determination step for determining safety of the component based on the environmental load information received in the environmental load information reception step and the chemical substance information stored in the chemical substance information storage step. And a safety determination result display step for displaying the safety determination result determined in the safety determination step, and can be configured as an environmental load safety determination method.

  In addition, as described in claim 7, the environmental load information receiving step for receiving environmental load information for each chemical substance contained in the component, and the environmental load information for storing the environmental load information received from the environmental load information receiving step A storage step, a chemical substance information storage step for storing information on the amount of the chemical substance considered to be safe for each chemical substance, an information stored in the environmental load information storage step, and a chemical substance information storage step. Based on the stored information, a safety determination step for determining the safety of the component, and a safety determination result display step for displaying the safety determination result determined in the safety determination step on the computer It can be configured as an environmental load safety determination program to be executed.

  In the environmental load safety determination device of the present invention, it is possible to realize reduction of human labor and early determination of a determination result by facilitating the determination work of environmental load safety.

  Hereinafter, a first embodiment of the present invention will be described.

<System configuration>
FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining the configuration of a system that uses an environmental load safety determination device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

  In FIG. 1, a safety judgment device 1 is a device for judging whether a part to be purchased satisfies a safety judgment standard which is a standard indicating safety, and includes a supplier client 2 and a network via a network such as the Internet. It is connected to a design area client 3 used by a user (design area) who performs design using parts. The environmental load information of the parts delivered by the supplier to the safety judgment device 1 is input from the supplier client 2 through a predetermined user interface using a keyboard, mouse or the like. The environmental load information is information representing a load applied to the environment such as a chemical substance contained in the material of the part and a use of the part. Further, the designer who designs the product using the part can refer to the result determined by the safety determination device by the design section client 3.

  The safety determination device 1 includes an environmental load information reception unit 11, an environmental information load storage unit 12, a chemical substance information storage unit 13, a safety determination unit 14, an expert determination information storage unit 15, and a safety determination result display unit 16. is doing. Information received by the environmental load information receiving unit 11 is stored in the environmental load information storage unit 12 and whether or not the safety determination unit 14 is safe based on the information stored in the chemical substance information storage unit. judge. The result is displayed on the safety judgment result display unit 16. Depending on the chemical substance and content, the safety determination unit 14 alone may not be able to perform the safety determination. In this case, the relevant environmental load information is stored in the expert determination information storage unit 15 and input by the expert. A safety judgment is also made together with the judgment.

The environmental load information receiving unit 11 receives environmental load information input from the supplier client 2 by the supplier. An example of the screen of the supplier client 2 will be described as a user interface input by the supplier shown in FIG. The supplier client 2 displays a classification for classifying the chemical substance, a chemical substance name that is the name of the chemical substance contained in the part, and a threshold value that indicates the maximum value that is safe for a given chemical substance. . The supplier enters whether the parts to be delivered contain a predetermined chemical substance in the content column as Yes (contained) or No (contained).
When it contains, whether it contains more than the amount displayed in the threshold value column in the threshold value excess content column is input as Yes (with a threshold value exceeding content) or No (without a threshold value exceeding content). Furthermore, the content of a predetermined chemical substance per part is input. In addition, the usage purpose, which is the purpose of using a predetermined chemical substance, and the usage site corresponding to the usage purpose are input. In addition, since a part may be used for a plurality of purposes and parts, in that case, all use purposes and use parts are input.

  The environmental load information storage unit 12 stores the data received by the environmental load information reception unit 11.

  FIG. 3 shows an example of the data structure of the environmental load information storage unit 12. The environmental load information storage unit 12 has, as data items, a part number, a chemical substance name, a content, a content exceeding a threshold value, a content, a use site, a purpose of use, and the like of a part that is a target of environmental load information.

  Each part includes one or more chemical substances, and each chemical substance includes N (N ≧ 1) combinations of the purpose of use and the use site.

  FIG. 4 shows an example of data stored in the environmental load information storage unit 12. Here, regarding the part having the part number 0001, 80 mg of cadmium and its compound, 650 mg of polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), and 300 mg of asbestos are contained. Further, cadmium and its compounds are used at the site of the wire coating material for the purpose of a flame retardant and a flame retardant aid, and polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) are used at the site of the plug for the purpose of catalyst. Asbestos is used as a part for general in-machine harvesting for the purpose of improving fluorescent tube characteristics, for the purpose of plating material, for the part of the high voltage electric wire, for the purpose of the pigment, for the part of the insulating tape for the purpose of pigment. Other chemical substances are not used.

  In addition, the target chemical substance for safety determination includes, for example, a hexavalent chromium compound. Examples of the use site of the chemical substance that is the object of the safety determination include a label and a tube.

  FIG. 5 shows an example of the data structure of the chemical substance information storage unit 13. The chemical substance information storage unit 13 includes, as data items, a safety judgment indicating safety determined by a correspondence between a chemical substance name, a threshold value, a purpose of use and a part to be used. That is, the safety judgment is determined to be one for each of n (n ≧ 1) usage purposes and combinations of usage sites. If the part does not contain the specified chemical substance, it is determined to be safe (indicated as ◎ in FIGS. 6, 8 to 14 and the following description). Otherwise, the purpose and use of each chemical substance Safety is determined by a combination of parts, and is safe, or cannot be determined (referred to as Δ in FIGS. 6, 8 to 14 and the following description), or is not safe (FIGS. 6, 8 to 14 and In the following description, it is determined as x).

  Furthermore, the chemical substance information storage unit 13 has a data item that the chemical substance is a restricted substance. A restricted substance indicates whether it is a chemical substance whose use may be prohibited in the future.

  FIG. 6 shows an example of data stored in the chemical substance information storage unit 13. FIG. 6A shows the correspondence between chemical substance names and threshold values stored in the chemical substance information storage unit 13. In the determination described later, when the determination is made by comparing the content of the substance with a threshold value, if the cadmium and its compound are contained in excess of 75 mg, it will be determined as x.

FIG. 6B shows the correspondence between the purpose of use, the use site, and safety. In the determination described below, when performing the exclusion determination, for example, it is determined to be ◎ when the purpose of use is a flame retardant / flame retardant auxiliary, and the use site is a wire film material. For example, it may be divided into a RoHS threshold and an in-house standard threshold. When making safety decisions, use RoHS thresholds to make decisions that comply with the European RoHS directive, and use company standard thresholds to make decisions based on standards prescribed by the company. The determination may be made by providing a reference value for each regulation of the area of manufacture, distribution, sales, or group. In addition, by setting the in-house standard threshold to a value that is higher in safety than the RoHS threshold, it is possible to procure parts using the in-house standard value, and to manufacture and sell products with higher environmental performance.

  The safety determination unit 14 determines whether the component received by the environmental load information reception unit 11 satisfies the safety standard based on the information in the chemical substance information storage unit 13.

  FIG. 7 describes the relationship between data items used in the safety determination unit 14 and an outline of safety determination performed using the data items. In FIG. 7A, the part having the part number 0001 to be determined includes chemical substance 1, chemical substance 2,. Further, the chemical substance 1 includes a use purpose / use part 11, a use purpose / use part 12,..., A use purpose / use part 1n. Similarly, the chemical substance 2 includes a use purpose / use part 21, a use purpose / use part 22,..., A use purpose / use part 2m.

  FIG. 7B shows an outline of the determination flow. In order to determine the part having the part number 0001, the safety of each of the chemical substances 1 to N is determined, and a comprehensive determination is performed based on the N chemical substance safety determination results. Depending on the determination conditions, the safety of the chemical substance may be determined based on the purpose of use and the site of use, and this will be referred to as exclusion use determination. When the safety of the chemical substance 1 is determined in this way, the use purpose / use part 11 to the use purpose / use part 1n are judged, and the chemical substance safety judgment result is calculated based on the n judgment results. To do.

  Next, the determination performed by the safety determination unit 1 will be described in detail for the flow. FIG. 8 shows in detail the flow of safety determination performed by the safety determination unit 14. The following determination is made for the chemical substances contained in the parts to be determined. When the part to be determined includes a plurality of predetermined chemical substances, the same determination is repeated for each chemical substance. First, it is determined whether or not a predetermined chemical substance is contained in the corresponding part (S11). If not contained, the corresponding chemical substance is judged as ◎ (S12).

  When a predetermined chemical substance is included, it is determined according to a predetermined response whether there is an excluded use (S13). If there is no excluded use, it is determined as x (S14).

  If there is an excluded use, an excluded use determination is performed based on the intended use and use site of the chemical substance (S15). An excluded application means an application that is permitted to be used because there is no substitute chemical depending on the purpose of use and use site, and an excluded application determination is to determine whether or not an excluded application is used.

  According to this determination flow, regarding the chemical substance contained in the part number 0001, cadmium and its compounds, polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), and asbestos contain Yes, It will be judged. Since the content of other substances is No, the determination as a chemical substance is ◎.

  When the predetermined chemical substance is not included in the safety determination, it may be determined whether or not the amount of the predetermined chemical substance exceeds a threshold value. When the contained amount exceeds the threshold value, the corresponding chemical substance is determined as “x”, and when the contained amount does not exceed the threshold value, the corresponding chemical substance is determined as “◎”. As a result, even if there is data due to a mistake by the supplier that a chemical substance is contained but it is entered if it does not contain it, this judgment makes accurate safety A determination can be made.

  FIG. 9 shows a processing flow of the exclusion use determination (S15) of the safety determination unit 14. Here, the determination target is a chemical substance determined to have an excluded use in the above-described determination flow.

  In the excluded use determination, the following determination is performed for each combination of the purpose of use and the part to be used. The same determination is repeated when the chemical substance to be determined includes a plurality of purposes and parts of use. For some purposes and sites of use, the determination is based on the chemical content. First, according to a predetermined response, a determination according to the purpose of use and the site of use is acquired for a chemical substance (S20). When the determination is quantitative determination (indicated as G in FIG. 9 and the following description) (S21), it is determined whether the content of the chemical substance is less than 5 mg or more than 5 mg (S211). If it is less than 5 mg, it is determined as ◎ (S2111), and if it is 5 mg or more, it is determined as x (S2112). When the determination is a threshold determination (denoted as S in FIG. 9 and the following description) (S22), it is determined whether the content of the chemical substance is equal to or less than the threshold or exceeds the threshold (S221). If it is less than or equal to the threshold value, ◎ (S2211), and if it exceeds the threshold value, × (S2212) is determined.

  For use purposes and use sites whose determination methods are not based on the content of chemical substances, the corresponding excluded use determination values are the results (S23 to S25).

  According to this determination flow, for the chemical substance contained in the part number 0001, as shown in FIG. 4, cadmium and its compound are used for the flame retardant / flame retardant aid, and the use site is the wire coating material. Therefore, it is determined as ◎ based on the correspondence in FIG. Similarly, polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) are judged as Δ because the use site is a catalyst and the use purpose is a plug. Asbestos is used for three types of purposes and sites. In this case, the use purpose is a plating material and the use part is used in combination with a high-voltage electric wire, so that the use purpose is a pigment, and the use part is used in combination with an insulating tape. For a combination where the purpose of use is to improve the fluorescent tube characteristics and the use site is for a general in-flight harvest, the determination method is G. Therefore, the content of 300 mg of asbestos is less than the threshold of 200 mg, and thus is determined as x.

  When the determinations of S21 to S25 are made for all combinations of usage purposes and use parts, a chemical substance comprehensive determination (S26), which is a comprehensive determination of the target chemical substance, is performed. FIG. 10 shows the flow. It is determined whether or not there is a cross among all the excluded use determination results (S31). If there is x, a determination of x is obtained as a chemical substance (S32). If there is no x, it is determined whether or not there is Δ among all the excluded use determination results (S33). If there is Δ, the determination as a chemical substance is Δ (S34). If there is no Δ, the determination as a chemical substance is ◎ (S35).

  In this example, the three types of use and combinations of asbestos are determined as ◎, Δ, and ×, respectively, so the chemical substance comprehensive determination of asbestos is ×.

  When all the chemical substance comprehensive determinations used in the target part are made by the above-described process, the comprehensive part determination that is the safety determination as the target part is performed. FIG. 11 shows the flow. It is determined whether or not there is a cross in the chemical substance comprehensive judgment for all chemical substances (S41). If there is x, a determination of x is obtained as a part (S42). If there is no x, it is determined whether or not there is Δ among all the chemical substance comprehensive determinations (S43). If there is Δ, the determination as a part is Δ (S44). If there is no Δ, the determination as a part is ◎ (S45).

  In this example, since cadmium and its compound are ◎, lead and its compound are Δ, and asbestos is x, the overall component judgment is x. That is, the result of the safety determination regarding the component with the component number 0001 is x.

  When the result of the safety determination as a part is Δ, the environmental load information is stored in the expert determination information storage unit 15 and then notified to the expert and the determination by them may be accepted. FIG. 12 shows an example of an expert use screen. Here, according to the above-described flow, information regarding the chemical substance obtained as a result of Δ is displayed, and a user interface for allowing an expert to input a determination regarding safety is provided.

  The safety determination of the parts determined by the safety determination unit 14 is displayed on the design zone client 3 by the safety determination result display unit 16 as shown in FIG. 13 as an example. The design area can use these results in product design.

  Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described. The configuration of the system that uses the environmental load safety determination device according to the second embodiment is the same as that of the first embodiment, and only the determination flow of the safety determination unit 11 is different. FIG. 14 shows a safety determination flow in the second embodiment.

  The following determination is made for the chemical substances contained in the parts to be determined. When the part to be determined includes a plurality of chemical substances, the same determination is repeated for each chemical substance. First, it is determined whether or not a chemical substance is included in the corresponding part (S51). If it is not included, the corresponding chemical substance is determined as ◎ (S52).

  If a chemical substance is included, it is determined whether the corresponding chemical substance is a restricted substance (S53). In the case where there is a restriction in the restriction substance item of the chemical substance information storage unit 13, the substance is a substance that is scheduled to be prohibited in the future (shown as □ in FIG. 14 and the following description). Is determined (S54).

  If it is determined that there is no restriction, it is determined according to a predetermined correspondence table whether there is an excluded use as in the first embodiment (S55). If there is no excluded use, it is determined as x (S56).

  If there is an excluded use, an excluded use determination is made based on the intended use and use site of the chemical substance (S57). Subsequent processing is performed in the same manner as in the first embodiment.

  As a result, although it is not prohibited at present, it is possible to make a judgment including the possibility of being prohibited in the future, and whether or not the designer will use the parts according to the sales time of the product to be designed, etc. Can be judged.

  As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention, it is possible to realize reduction of human labor and early determination of determination results by facilitating the determination work of environmental load safety.

It is a figure which shows the structural example of the system concerning one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of an input screen of a supplier client. It is a figure which shows the example of a data structure of an environmental load information storage part. It is a figure which shows the example of data memorize | stored in the environmental load information storage part. It is a figure which shows the example of a data structure of a chemical substance information storage part. It is a figure which shows the example of data memorize | stored in the chemical substance information storage part. It is a figure which shows the outline | summary of safety determination. It is a flowchart which shows the process example of safety determination. It is a flowchart which shows the process example of exclusion use determination. It is a flowchart which shows the process example of chemical substance comprehensive determination. It is a flowchart which shows the process example of components comprehensive determination. It is a figure which shows the example of the input screen of an expert client. It is a figure which shows the example of the reference screen of a design area client. It is a flowchart which shows the process example of safety determination.

Claims (7)

  Environmental load information receiving means for receiving environmental load information for each chemical substance contained in a component, chemical substance information storage means for storing chemical substance information related to safety criteria for the chemical substance, and environmental load information receiving means Safety judgment means for judging safety of the parts based on the environmental load information and the chemical substance information stored in the chemical substance information storage means, and safety judged by the safety judgment means An environmental load safety judgment device comprising safety judgment result display means for displaying a judgment result.   The environmental load safety determination device according to claim 1, further comprising an expert determination information storage unit that stores the environmental load information related to a part whose safety determination result is determined to be unusable. Load safety judgment device.   The environmental impact safety determination device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the safety determination means determines that the component is safe when the component does not contain a predetermined chemical substance, and the predetermined An environmental load safety determination device characterized in that when a chemical substance is contained, an excluded use determination is performed for each chemical substance, and the safety of the component is determined based on the excluded use determination.   The environmental impact safety determination device according to claim 3, wherein the exclusion use determination performs a safety determination based on a purpose of use of the part, a use site, and a content of the chemical substance. Environmental impact safety judgment device.   5. The environmental impact safety determination device according to claim 4, wherein in the exclusion use determination, the chemical substance is determined to be unsafe when the content of the chemical substance is greater than a threshold value. Safety judgment device.   Environmental load information receiving step for receiving environmental load information for each chemical substance contained in the component, chemical substance information storing step for storing chemical substance information related to the safety judgment standard of the chemical substance, and the environmental load information receiving step In addition, based on the chemical substance information stored in the environmental load information and the chemical substance information storage step, a safety determination step for determining safety of the component, and a safety determined in the safety determination step And a safety judgment result display step for displaying the sex judgment result.   An environmental load information receiving step for receiving environmental load information for each chemical substance contained in the part, an environmental load information storage step for storing the environmental load information received from the environmental load information receiving step, and the chemical substance for each chemical substance. Based on the information stored in the chemical substance information storage step, the information stored in the environmental load information storage step, and the information stored in the chemical substance information storage step, the safety of the component is stored. An environmental load safety determination program that causes a computer to execute a safety determination step for determining safety and a safety determination result display step for displaying a safety determination result determined in the safety determination step.

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