WESTFORD, MA, Jan. 24, 2005 - MatrixOne has created MatrixOne Materials Compliance Central - a business process application designed to enable companies to adhere to and keep pace with new environmental compliance regulations throughout the product development process.

Certain regulations - which will be in effect starting with the WEEE directive in Europe in August of 2005 and RoHS starting in July 2006 - are aimed at reducing the amount of hazardous materials in new products and ensuring that the materials are recyclable at the end of their product lifecycle. Under these new regulations, manufacturers must implement processes to collect, organize, analyze and report detailed materials and substance data related to all new products.

MatrixOne Materials Compliance Central allows users to analyze Bill of Material (BOM), or product content information from any source and cross-reference the data against multiple substance lists and regulation requirements easily and accurately during product development. As stated in a press release, product teams can quickly determine whether a product's components meet compliance standards and certain design thresholds from the start of the project.

Materials Compliance Central also reportedly allows for suppliers to be incorporated into the compliance process at its earliest stages to ensure up-front adherence to new regulations regarding their designs and components before it is too late or too costly to make changes.