Protecting the health and well-being of consumers and the world at large is the quality industry’s highest calling. During the past several decades, as the manufacture of electronics and consumer goods has shifted away from North America and Europe, the need to confirm and ensure the safety of those products has greatly increased. How do we contribute to quality assurance when manufacturing is no longer in our back yard? A new organization—one that helps track supplier, manufacturer, and distributor compliance with tough international regulations on hazardous substances—could be just the thing to help you start taking real action for change.

Hazardous substance process management (HSPM) is a systematic, “cradle-to-grave” approach to this problem. The use within manufactured goods of materials such as mercury, lead, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, biphenyls, and several others are restricted or outlawed in several nations, due to their harmful effects on humans and the difficulty in disposing of them. Unfortunately, these substances continue to appear in products that reach human hands. All too frequently, those hands belong to children.

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