Sustainability Compliance with Teamcenter & DataCross

Siemens PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) applications connect teams, data and processes in a unified platform to simplify, accelerate, and secure the complexity of product development. The focus is on digitalizing project-, product- and program-related processes to optimise products throughout their entire lifecycle. In this context, Siemens Teamcenter PLM software has become one of the leading systems for managing and optimizing the product life cycle.

Sustainability compliance as a decisive factor in the development of products

Compliance with sustainability requirements has become a decisive factor in product development. Key regulations in this area include environmental and material-specific laws, such as the CSRD, the Supply Chain Obligations Act, the REACH Regulation, the RoHS Directive, and regulations on PFAS — also known as “forever chemicals.” These legal, market, and customer-driven requirements are crucial for a product’s marketability and liability already today and in the future:

Consequently, sustainability specifications are integral to every stage of product development and procurement. The purchasing department, responsible for acquiring products and services that meet these standards, must establish a legally binding sustainability specification to communicate with suppliers. This specification serves as the basis for approving orders and verifying compliance. Similarly, the development team, tasked with ensuring that all assigned requirements—including those related to sustainability—are met throughout the product development process, relies on this sustainability specification. This specification, conveyed to suppliers as part of the contractual requirements, ensures that sustainability standards are embedded in every stage of the process.

The processes required for this must be state-of-the-art in both design and implementation. A digital solution for tracking the current status of requirements implementation is essential.

Ensuring conformity by Teamcenter integration of DataCross

The foundation of any compliance is the accurate documentation of target specifications, their regular  updates and the comparison of these specifications with the actual state. tec4U-Solutions offers a comprehensive range of solutions and services to support these tasks. This includes the continuously monitoring of specifications, retrieval of the necessary latest data from suppliers, and their subsequent evaluation and consolidation into a product statement. DataCross serves as a communication platform for sustainability data, bridging the gab between data collection, evaluation and reporting.

DataCross is build on the Siemens Mendix technology, ensuring  easy integration into the Siemens system environment due to its technological compatibility. In this context, DataCross addresses the active information needs of other Siemens applications related to sustainability:

  • Always up-to-date, specifications are continuously maintained and updated
  • Consistent implementation of the state of the art – Compliance with DIN EN IEC 63000 ensures legal certainty and significantly reduces liability risks
  • Extensive regulatory coverage, DataCross supports product-related sustainability regulations (e.g. REACH, RoHS, POP, PFAS, CMRT, EUDR, CO2 footprint, currently covering 28 regulations) as well as for company-related sustainability (e.g. LKSG, CSRD, Taxonomy Regulation…)
  • Intelligent, user-friendly processes; high-quality data with maximum user acceptance is ensured through streamlined, intuitive processes.
  • Supplier data flexibility; data can be provided outside of DataCross (e.g. Excel), simplifying integration with existing supplier systems.
  • Multi-business concept; Manage up to 150 business units or locations individually, while merging them into a single OEM account.
  • Full and partial declarations, in accordance with the IPC standard. Requests can be tailored to specific topics, enabling an individual supplier approach.
  • Extensive customizability; DataCross can be configured to meet the customer-specific requirements, aligning with legal, economic and process related frameworks.

Leveraging Mendix Technology

The Mendix technology behind DataCross enables:

  • Mapping complex corporate structures that effectively handles high volumes of data.
  • High-performance processes; Manage up to 500,000 parts lists and 15,000 suppliers in a single account without system performance degradation.
  • Agility and flexibility; respond to changing requirements quickly, whether by adapting existing applications or developing new ones.

What are the benefits of Teamcenter integration of DataCross?

  • Firstly, DataCross acts as a reliable bridge between supplier´s sustainability data and the Siemens applications, supporting improved product development and procurement in line with specifications.
  • Secondly, the close integration of DataCross and Teamcenter ensures product specifications are always aligned with the latest requirements and that these are tracked by the supplier.
  • In addition, a Teamcenter integration of DataCross enables an automated data exchange (if sought) for the communication of specifications, in which the necessary data can be shared with DataCross and the determined/calculated data can be fed back.
  • Ultimately, the Teamcenter integration of DataCross offers a complete sustainability solution; build on Siemens technologies.

Sustainability data from DataCross to Teamcenter

The technical synchronization between DataCross and Teamcenter is achieved via a flexible, efficient, and scalable REST API. Data transfer follows the proven IPC 1752 standard for material and product declarations, ensuring structured, standardized, and secure transmission of data. This integration supports smooth data flow and optimizes business processes:

  • Improved product conformity
  • Ensuring the marketability of products
  • Reduced risk of product liability

Learn more about the Teamcenter Extension for Compliance!

The Sustainability Compliance Platform DataCross

DataCross simplifies the communication, evaluation, and consolidation of company, product, and material compliance requirements, delivering reliable sustainability information. As a SaaS solution built on the Mendix/Siemens PaaS platform, DataCross ensures comprehensive service integration, including business services, platform services, and data storage. It can be hosted on all common clouds as IaaS.

  • Automated Supplier Communication
    The system uses automated, rule-specific communication based on risk assessments or questionnaires, supporting multiple languages (DE, EN, FR, Chinese).
  • High User Acceptance
    The intuitive interface ensures easy adoption by the supply chain, while a built-in escalation system facilitates sensitive supplier communication.
  • Seamless Integration with Siemens
    Through Teamcenter, DataCross offers Siemens customers the ability to develop and market products in compliance with legal and industry standards, with extensive integration options that support workflow and process integration across various stakeholders.

Through Teamcenter, DataCross enables Siemens customers to develop and market products in full compliance with legal and industry standards. The extensive integration options in the Siemens application ecosystem allow diverse stakeholders to access up-to-data data, supported by workflows and seamlessly integrate this information into their processes.

Your contact:
Johannes Chatzis
Email: j.chatzis@tec4U-solutions.com
Phone: +49 681/92564-123