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98 The PCB Magazine • July 2017 The first method is frequently used by low- er-tier suppliers who are not totally dedicated to the automotive market. Of course, the fabrica- tor must know what constitutes "complete" for IMDS. The second method is more practical for suppliers who produce primarily for the auto- motive market, and in fact it may be contractu- ally required by their customers. The problem many electronics manufac- turers face is that their data is not comprehen- sive and complete enough for IMDS. The issue here is material data quality control. In prac- tice, most BOMs have some missing or ambig- uous materials data. A major reason for this is that comprehensive material documentation is generally not mandatory for doing business outside of the automotive industry; therefore, material data quality is not as important. An- other reason is that many electronic compo- nents are purchased from commercial distrib- utors outside of the automotive supply chain. These compete on price and delivery and have weak incentives to obtain and provide materials documentation. This works for most commer- AUTOMOTIVE SUPPLIERS MUST MANAGE DATA FOR IMDS COMPLIANCE Figure 1: 1a. IPC MCD with sufficient data for IMDS compliance reporting, compared to 1b., a partial IMDS record for the two components in 1a. Note that substance weights have been changed to percent of total and the components have been placed on the IMDS BOM tree.