Those looking at the digital product passport for the first time often search for a new system in which everything is entered again. This is the most common mistake: companies treat the passport as a completely separate process, while steel certificates, declarations of conformity and existing quality files already contain much of the requested data.
The result is duplicate work and, worse still, data that no longer match over time. An employee modifies a value in one system but forgets that the same value is also in the passport. The solution is not another system, but linking sources that already exist.
What goes wrong in practice
The most common pattern is this: a quality officer manually fills in the digital product passport based on a PDF of a 3.1 certificate, while that same certificate is already stored in another system. With each new batch of steel, this work is repeated, separate from the existing archive. As soon as something changes, for example an addition to the composition or a corrected origin, it is sometimes only adjusted in the original document and not in the passport.
A second, similar mistake is that companies think the digital product passport replaces an existing obligation, such as CE marking or the technical file under product safety rules. The regulation for the product passport stands alongside those rules, not in place of them. Which documentation is precisely required for your products and how it relates to each other is something you should best seek advice on from a lawyer or the competent supervisory authority.
Why this often goes unnoticed
As long as passports are not yet mandatory, a company barely notices this problem. Only when the first batches are actually provided with a passport does it become clear that the source data is scattered across multiple departments: purchasing has the supplier declarations, quality has the certificates, and sales administration has the batch data. No one has access to the complete picture, and thus the passport is compiled from separate pieces that are not always aligned.
How to prevent this
The essence is simple: first map what documentation you already have before you start collecting data again. This means checking where material certificates, declarations of conformity and origin data are already located, and who is responsible for them. Only after that is it useful to determine which data is missing and where it is best recorded.
It also helps to discuss with your software supplier whether existing files and systems can be linked to the passport, rather than having data manually retyped. This way there remains one source of truth, and you do not work with two versions of the same information. For companies that do not yet know where their own documentation falls short, the questionnaire that provides an indication in a few minutes gives a first direction.
What this means for your own situation
Whether and how your existing documentation exactly meets the requirements of the digital product passport depends on your role in the chain and the products you supply. This is something that differs per company and about which no general statement can be made. The knowledge base with topics per situation shows what questions are relevant, and the explanation of the source of our information shows how we collect and keep that data up to date.
Should you be in doubt whether an existing certificate or file provides sufficient basis, that is a question for a lawyer or for the supervisory authority competent in your case. Ferropas.eu compiles product passports on the basis of the data that you and your suppliers provide, but does not make any statement on the legal status of your existing documentation.
Do you want to know where your company stands now, without immediately creating an account? Take the free quick-scan or browse through the frequently asked questions about the digital product passport to see which step is most appropriate for you.