Substance Lists Hub — AD-DSL, SDS/MSDS, chemSHERPA & Custom DSL

chemSHERPA is a standardized data format developed by Japan's METI (via the JAMP consortium) for exchanging chemical substance information across supply chains. It comes in two formats: chemSHERPA-CI for chemical products like paints and resins, and chemSHERPA-AI for articles like components and assemblies. It is widely required by Japanese and pan-Asian OEMs including Panasonic, Sony, and Epson, and is increasingly expected by global electronics and automotive companies. Its managed substance list updates every February and August. Regilient handles schema mapping, import/export, and picklist normalization for chemSHERPA.

The AD-DSL (Aerospace and Defense Declarable Substance List) is an industry-managed list maintained by the IAEG (International Aerospace Environmental Group). It consolidates substances regulated under REACH, TSCA, POPs, RoHS, and other frameworks into a single reference tailored to aerospace materials, coatings, and electronics. It is not a regulation itself but a voluntary industry standard. However, most defense primes and A&D OEMs now require AD-DSL-aligned declarations as part of supplier qualification. If your customer requires it, it is effectively mandatory for you.

Customers frequently go beyond standard industry lists. An OEM might maintain a brand-specific blacklist of substances they are phasing out ahead of regulation, tighter thresholds than the standard list, or application-specific restrictions not on GADSL or AD-DSL. If you supply multiple customers across industries, you are already managing parallel lists. A Custom DSL capability in Regilient lets you load customer-specific lists alongside standard ones, screen a single BOM through all applicable lists simultaneously, and generate the correct output format for each customer.

Safety Data Sheets (SDS, formerly MSDS) describe hazardous properties of chemical products like adhesives, coatings, and lubricants. They are designed for occupational safety and transport, not product compliance. SDS data typically discloses hazardous ingredients but does not map to regulatory thresholds the way chemSHERPA or IPC-1752 declarations do. SDS is useful as a screening starting point, but usually needs to be supplemented with formal declarations or lab test data. Regilient ingests SDS alongside structured declarations to build a complete compliance picture.

Update frequency varies by list. chemSHERPA's managed substance list updates twice a year (February and August). GADSL updates annually (February). AD-DSL releases roughly annual updates, with Version 9.0 (2025) adding significant substance counts. Customer-specific lists can change at any time. Each update means re-screening existing BOMs, identifying newly affected parts, triggering re-collection from suppliers, updating declarations, and archiving evidence. Regilient automates change monitoring and re-collection prompts so you never run production on a stale declaration.

A substance check asks whether substance X is present above threshold Y in a material. A roll-up aggregates that data from the bottom of the BOM to the top: raw material to component to sub-assembly to finished product, calculating actual concentrations at each level. Many regulations set thresholds at the homogeneous material level, not the product level. Without a proper roll-up, you could miss a flag or over-report. Regilient performs part-to-assembly-to-product aggregation and generates customer-ready compliance packs from the results.