Using Compositions and Composition Calculation

Compositions are a main source of information in product compliance. The composition hierarchy consists of the following compositions:

1. Material-based compositions (MC) - originating from the (production) bill of materials (BOM) or recipe and thus represents a logistical or production-related perspective of products. Raw materials or intermediate products in the MC are represented by their compliance view.
2. Analytical composition (AC) - the analytical composition comprises of substances and therefore is key for product compliance. It represents the chemical perspective of products. To meet specific requirements of regulations specific for a country/region, there can be variants of the analytical composition, specific for a legal area - the (2a) Legal-area-specific Analytical composition (LA-AC).

Derived from the analytical composition, there can be a Confidential Business Information. This is a special kind of composition, intended to mask specific substances or concentration values.

Understand how the analytical composition of a product is calculated from its material based composition.

• Material-based compositions (MC) can be created only for compliance views that have the logistics role Produced assigned.
• The material-based composition originates from the (production) bill of materials or the recipe. The component materials for production are represented by their compliance views.
• The material-based composition contains all materials going into the production of an unpackaged product. These components can be raw materials or unpackaged products that are intermediates.

Material-based composition before and after production

• The before-production view depicts the components put into the production of the unpackaged product.
• The after-production view depicts the result of the production process. In the case of a chemical reaction or physical changes, the remaining components may be different and substances may be produced.

Legal deviation of the material-based composition after production

In case deviations in produced substances are required for a legal area, a legal deviation of the material-based composition after production can be created. Produced substances can be replaced with the option to adjust concentration or produced substances can be deleted.

Since most legal obligations for product compliance relate to chemical substances contained in a product, analytical compositions are an essential source of information for carrying out compliance assessments. In general, analytical compositions are globally valid, but there can be cases, which require replacement of individual substances to be able to comply with specific regulations of a country/region. There are two variants of the analytical composition to serve compliance assessments related to substances:

1. Analytical composition
   • The analytical composition is derived from the material-based composition after production.
   • Analytical compositions of remaining components and, in the case of chemical reactions or physical changes, the produced substances go into the calculation.
2. Legal-area-specific analytical composition
   • The legal-area-specific analytical composition is derived from the material-based composition after production, from which the remaining components' legal-area-specific analytical compositions are processed. In case there is no matching legal-area-specific analytical composition, the globally-valid analytical composition is processed for calculation instead. When editing the legal-area-specific analytical composition, you most frequently replace individual substances either from the remaining components or produced substances according to legal requirements.
   • Here, there is no relation to compliance requirements, but compliance requirements can relate to a specific legal composition for processing. This relation is defined upon activation of a compliance requirement.

Globally-valid and legal-area-specific analytical compositions have individual calculation paths due to the replacement of substances in the legal-area-specific analytical composition.

For (re)calculation of the globally-valid analytical composition, the globally-valid analytical composition of all remaining components is processed along with the produced substances, so the following data goes into the calculation:

• Analytical composition of components in the material-based composition, remaining after production - these components can be:
  • Raw materials with their analytical composition
  • (Intermediate) products, with their analytical composition
• Produced substances in the material-based composition of the same level, manually created and edited

For (re)calculation of a legal-area-specific analytical composition (LA-AC), the legal-area-specific analytical compositions of all contained components are processed along with the produced substances:

• Legal-area-specific analytical composition of components, contained after production - these remaining components can be
  • Raw materials with their manually created legal-area-specific analytical composition.
  • (Intermediate) products with their manually created legal-area-specific analytical composition.
  • If no legal-area specific analytical composition is available for remaining components, the globally-valid analytical composition is used.
• Replacement substance, manually created as part of the final product's MC (material-based composition) legal deviation in produced substances.
• Produced Substances, those which have not been replaced or adjusted as part of the MC legal deviation in produced substances.

The raw material analytical composition (RMAC) is the baseline for the calculation and processing of compositional data. Most frequently, the RMAC is the aggregation of data from the underlying supplier raw material analytical composition(SRAC).

(1) The information maintained in an SRAC is automatically transferred to the RMAC.

The initial supplier raw material (1a) sets the baseline for the RMAC, which is the foundation for composition calculations and further processing of compliance requirements.

When there are additional supplier raw materials (1b), the data of the related RMAC is supplemented from the SRAC following given rules. This can result in creating range limit values if the concentration of a common substance differs among the SRACs of the assigned supplier raw materials. Assuming there is not a 100% declaration available for each supplier raw material, usually a company substance is used to top up the SRAC to 100%.

(2) Finally, the RMAC must be evaluated. In many cases, the concentration data must be adjusted manually prior to the release of the RMAC. In this step, it is recommended to provide exact concentration values whenever applicable.

(3) There are cases in which the RMAC must be adjusted to enable the correct processing of compliance requirements. For example, when it comes to compliance checks or calculations. In such cases, you derive a legal-area-specific analytical composition from the RMAC and replace the affected substances.

The material-based composition is the center of composition management for a product or an intermediate. There are two variants of the material-based composition:

• (4) The material-based composition before production (MCBP) is derived from the (production) bill of materials (BOM). The components reflect the item lines of the BOM that go into production.
• (5) The material-based composition after production (MCAP) is required in case of chemical or physical changes like drying. You identify which components are no longer contained and which ones are still contained in the product. You supplement the produced substances.

(6) The analytical composition provides the substance-related view of a product, which is the starting point of numerous compliance assessments. It is derived from the MCAP, breaking down the contained components and adding the produced substances.

(7) Based on the MCAP, legal deviations can be created by replacing individual produced substances with alternate substances, specific for the assigned legal area. In some cases, a legal-area-specific analytical composition is required for the correct processing of compliance requirements.

From time to time, compositions may need to be changed due to, for example, the addition of new raw materials. To manage changes to compositions, the following status sequence ensures that only one dedicated set of composition data is in status Released and is consumed in any compliance assessment or calculation.

The access to a composition‘s history is a vital element for compliance management.

This option is available for all compositions that are part of basic compliance data:

• Product
  • Material-Based Composition
    • Before Production
    • After Production
  • Analytical Composition
  • Legal-Area-Specific Analytical Composition
• Raw Material
  • Analytical Composition
  • Legal-Area-Specific Analytical Composition

Follow an example on composition calculations for a product and its raw materials.

We want to produce the WHO-recommended Hygienic Hand Rub.

As components, we need 4 raw materials for production:

• Ethanol - here we have 2 suppliers, so here we create 2 supplier raw materials
• Hydrogen peroxide
• Glycerol
• Water

We begin with the creation of the raw materials for our four components along with the underlying supplier raw materials.

Then the 4 components with the given quantities from the bill of materials go into the material-based composition, from which the analytical composition of the product is calculated.

Have a glance at polymer composition and confidential business information.

The polymer composition is a special composition for polymer substances. The peculiarity of polymer substances are their very large molecules, called macromolecules.

These macromolecules are composed of smaller molecules, called monomers.

The polymer composition allows to describe the macromolecules by the constituting monomer substances. Since there can be variations on the polymers created from the same monomers, it is possible to have more than one polymer composition for one polymer substance.

Furthermore, polymer definitions may vary in legislation of countries/regions, so it might be necessary to have legal-area specific polymer compositions for a polymer substance.

For more details, refer to the section on the substance concept in the unit Compliance Data Foundation (CDF).

When it comes to disclosure of the composition of a product, for example, for creation of a safety data sheet, there may arise the necessity to keep specific details of the analytical composition as confidential business information.

This can relate to substances as well as to their concentration values in the product.

To serve such needs confidential business information can be maintained as special composition data. Here you can define substances relevant for confidential business information along with print settings for concentrations, which can be the following:

• Ranges, calculated based on underlying regulations;
• Substance specific values as maintained in this special composition

This definition of confidential business information also serves for registration of confidential business information if required by underlying regulations, which might also raise the need to have legal-area specific confidential business information definitions.

For more details, refer to the section on confidential business information in the unit Safety Data Sheets (SDS).