The Compliance Agent
Compliance work is mostly chasing. Which declarations are missing, which have expired, which predate a supplier's sub-tier change, and which of those actually block a product you sell. That is a traversal and a set of date rules.
What it is, and what it is not
An agent scoped to substance compliance: declarations, certificates, rollup status and the gaps between them. It works the evidence layer rather than the regulation layer.
It does not issue declarations of conformity. That is a legal statement made by a person in your organisation, and an agent producing one would be manufacturing liability under a different name. What it produces is the evidence pack the person signing needs in front of them.
It also never converts an unknown into a zero. A part with no supplier declaration rolls up as unknown, and unknown blocks certification. The agent's job is to shorten the list of unknowns, not to make the status green by treating a blank as compliant.
What it actually does
Ranks the gaps by what they block. Two hundred parts without declarations is a demoralising number and a useless one. Eleven of them are in products you currently sell into the EU; those eleven are the work, and the agent says so.
Watches dates. Certificates approaching expiry, declarations that predate a supplier change notification, assessments older than your policy allows. These are rules over dates and relationships rather than judgements, which is why they are reliable.
Drafts the chase. A request to a supplier naming the exact manufacturer parts, the regulation, the declaration format and the products depending on it — sent through the supplier portal at the shared revision rather than as an email that gets forwarded twice and lost.
Assembles the evidence pack. Given a product and a regulation, it gathers the declarations behind every line of the resolved structure, notes what is missing, and produces the pack a person reviews before signing. Each item cites the declaration and the revision it applies to.
The failure it prevents
A customer asks for a RoHS declaration on a product. Somebody exports the BOM, cross-references a folder of supplier certificates, finds most of them, and issues it.
Two certificates were for a different revision of the part. One supplier changed their sub-tier source eighteen months ago and the certificate predates that change. Four parts had no certificate at all and were assumed compliant because they are metal fasteners.
The declaration is signed and is probably fine. But nobody can reconstruct which evidence supported it, and when the enquiry arrives — from a customer, an authority, or an acquirer's diligence team — the answer takes three weeks and the confidence at the end is low. The agent's contribution is that the pack was assembled from linked evidence in the first place, and that the four fasteners were listed as unknown rather than assumed.
How it meets the rest of the product
Rollups run over resolved structures, so a gap is assessed against what actually ships: this product, as at this date, for this variant, at this plant. A part present only in a superseded revision is not chased, which is what keeps the list of eleven from becoming a list of two hundred again.
Declarations and certificates are vault documents with revisions and expiry, and supplier change notifications invalidate declarations that predate them. The agent reads all three and reports the resulting state rather than maintaining a parallel view of it.
Every claim cites the declaration, the part and the revision it applies to, and because the underlying rollup is deterministic a reviewer can re-run it and get the same answer. For a document that may end up in front of an authority, a claim that cannot be reproduced is not usable.
Where a compliance gap warrants a design change — substituting a part whose supplier will not declare — it drafts a real ECR through the ordinary process, with the impact set computed by a service that has no model in its path.
How it meets your ERP
Whether a gap is urgent depends on stock and purchasing, which are your ERP's. A part with no declaration and no open orders is a paperwork problem; the same part with a purchase order in flight and eleven weeks of coverage is a decision that needs making this week.
The agent reads on-hand, committed quantity, open purchase orders and lead time as context and shows them beside each gap, cited with the source system and an as-of stamp. That is the difference between a ranked list and a list somebody can act on.
It does not place a purchasing block. Manufacturing PLM publishes the compliance status; if you want a rule that stops buying an undeclared part, that rule belongs in your ERP and reads what was published. Nothing transactional is written in either direction.
Where the boundary is
It does not interpret regulations. Which substances are restricted, at what threshold, in what scope, with which exemptions — that is configured content maintained by somebody who owns it, and an agent reasoning freely about regulatory scope would produce confident answers with no standing behind them.
It also cannot assess a part nobody has declared on. The agent shortens the unknown list by chasing; it cannot shorten it by inference, and a compliance agent that inferred composition from a part description would be the single most dangerous feature in this product.
Facts
| Scope | Declarations · certificates · rollup gaps · expiry |
| Ranking | By what a gap actually blocks, not by count |
| Never | Converts an unknown into a zero |
| Never | Issues a declaration of conformity — a person signs |
| Watches | Expiring certificates, declarations predating a supplier change |
| Chases | Through the supplier portal, at the shared revision |
| ERP context | Stock and open orders, to rank urgency |
| Cannot | Interpret regulations or infer composition from a description |
Frequently asked
Can it make our compliance status green?
Only by getting declarations, which is the point. A part with no declaration rolls up as unknown and unknown blocks certification — the agent shortens that list by chasing suppliers, never by treating a blank as compliant. Inferring composition would be the most dangerous feature here.
Will it issue our declaration of conformity?
No. That is a legal statement made by a person in your organisation, and an agent producing one would be manufacturing liability under another name. What it assembles is the evidence pack that person needs in front of them before signing anything.
How does it decide which gaps matter?
By what they block. Two hundred parts without declarations is a demoralising and useless number; eleven of them being in products you currently sell into the EU is the actual work. Ranking runs over resolved structures, so superseded revisions are not chased.
Does it notice expiring certificates?
Yes, along with declarations that predate a supplier change notification and assessments older than your policy allows. These are rules over dates and relationships rather than judgements, which is precisely why they are reliable enough to act on without review.
How does it chase a supplier?
By drafting a request naming the exact manufacturer parts, the regulation, the declaration format required and the products depending on it — delivered through the supplier portal at the shared revision, rather than an email that gets forwarded twice and then lost.
Does it understand the regulations themselves?
No. Which substances are restricted, at what threshold, in what scope and with which exemptions is all configured content that somebody in your organisation owns and maintains. An agent reasoning freely about regulatory scope would produce confident answers with nothing at all standing behind them.
Can it block purchasing of an undeclared part?
No. Manufacturing PLM publishes the compliance status and nothing transactional is written in either direction. If you want a rule that stops buying a part with no declaration, that rule belongs in your ERP and reads what Manufacturing PLM published to it.