The policy
The environmental policy is published in three commitments:
- Comply with all applicable environmental legislation and regulations and pursue cleaner production.
- Save power, lower energy consumption and eliminate waste.
- Adhere to the harmonious development of man and nature.
Hitech Circuits Co., Limited treats environmental protection as an obligation rather than a marketing line: the company conforms strictly to the ISO 14001 standard, introduces green materials and pollution-free facilities and technologies into its operation, and works to minimise the effect of its products and its production processes on the environment.
What the ISO 14001 system requires
A certificate only means something if the system behind it is running, so the ISO 14001 framework is applied to the processes that actually touch the environment:
- Legal register — applicable legislation and regulations are identified and tracked, and compliance is reviewed as a system requirement rather than a one-off audit
- Aspects and impacts — the processes that consume energy, water or chemistry are identified, so improvement work is aimed at what has an effect rather than at what is visible
- Objectives and monitoring — energy and waste targets are set and measured, which is where the saving power and waste elimination commitments become numbers
- Cleaner production — green materials and pollution-free facilities and technologies are introduced as processes are replaced or upgraded
- Training and communication — the policy is communicated to employees, vendors, partners and customers, and applied to the way materials are handled on the floor
Occupational health and safety is managed as a separate system under ISO 45001, because the chemistry and equipment used in PCB fabrication are a safety subject as well as an environmental one.
What it means for a customer board
Most environmental questions from a buyer are really material questions, and those have direct answers:
- RoHS — boards are built RoHS compliant, with screening applied to incoming material and to finished boards. The standard surface finishes — lead-free HASL, ENIG, immersion silver, immersion tin, flash gold, OSP and carbon ink — are all compatible with that, as listed on the capability page.
- Halogen-free laminate — available as a standard material option for customers whose own compliance rules require it.
- REACH — substance screening is reported from an SGS test report, so the declaration is a test result rather than a self-declaration.
- Declarations with the order — a RoHS or REACH statement can be supplied with the shipment when it is asked for at order entry.
Nothing here is a special build: compliant finishes and laminate run on the same lines as everything else, which is why the lead times for a compliant order are the same as for any other.
Energy, waste and the production process
The commitments on power and waste are applied inside the plant rather than published as statistics:
- Energy consumption is reviewed process by process, and equipment is replaced with lower-consumption units where the return justifies it
- Waste is eliminated at source first — through process control, first-time-right panels and rework prevention — before recycling or licensed disposal is considered
- Chemistry, rinse water and consumables are handled under the controls that the ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 systems require, with the records held at the plant
Documentation and audits
Customers who run supplier audits ask for the same four things, and all four are available:
- Issued certificates — ISO 14001, ISO 45001 and the quality certificates are collected on the certifications page
- Material declarations — RoHS statements and the SGS REACH report for the boards supplied
- Inspection records — the quality data that travels with a build, listed on the quality assurance page
- Process limits — the published fabrication limits an auditor can check a specific order against, on the capability page
Audit requests are handled through the quality department, which owns the management-system records for this site — see the organization structure for how that maps onto the departments.