Manage packaging compliance

Workspace separates physical packaging from product master data and quantitative pack levels. You can reuse one packaging specification across products, load carriers, and shipping configurations, then apply different market rules.

This operating guide is for administrators and business owners responsible for packaging data, compliance, and quantity reporting. After setup, you have a revision-controlled packaging specification, a traceable market assignment, and a verifiable reporting path.

The feature records data, review, and decision states. It does not replace legal advice or promise that packaging complies with every applicable rule.

Prerequisites

• You can read and manage packaging specifications and the required compliance records.
• The legal entity, market, and optional sales channel exist in Workspace.
• Business owners have determined which market rules, roles, and evidence apply to the goods flow.
• The required requirements, controls, and evidence can be processed in Compliance Management.

Understand the model

A PackagingDefinition still describes a quantity relationship such as “one carton contains ten pieces.” A packaging specification describes the physical carton and its regulatory properties.

Prepare a specification

1. Open Compliance > Packaging > Specifications.
2. Create a stable key and a clear name.
3. Record the revision's packaging kind, completion mode, and use cycle.
4. Add components and their material allocations. Use assembly rules when a pallet, grouped packaging, or set consists of packaging already defined in another revision.
5. Link manufacturers, suppliers, and other parties to the revision with their business role.
6. Record facts with a typed value, source, method, and validity period.
7. Upload the technical documentation and declaration of conformity as versioned compliance documents. Add the applicable marking instruction.
8. Approve the revision, facts, documents, and marking through their linked compliance checks.

You cannot overwrite active revisions or facts. Create a new revision for a change so earlier shipment decisions remain reproducible.

A component can contain multiple material allocations. Material code, mass and recycled content are stored only in these catalogue-bound allocations. The material snapshot and quantity ledger use those values and count each allocation separately.

A package can only use an active specification and an active revision whose validity window includes the evaluation time. For the PPWR profile, record the material composition in addition to identification and substance evidence. Structured JSON facts use closed schemas; Workspace rejects unknown fields, incomplete material lists, and invalid values. Every fact marked as required is referenced by an executable rule, so the system can evaluate it instead of merely storing it.

Assign a market profile

Workspace initially ships the eu.ppwr profile. Its build-owned catalog applies the profile to the 27 EU member states based on the destination market. A destination such as CH or GB therefore does not trigger PPWR blocking. This does not mean that no packaging rules apply there; those rules require a separate profile. If the destination market is missing while a relevant active assignment exists, Workspace warns in Observe mode and blocks in Block mode.

1. Select the profile version, legal entity, and market.
2. Add a sales channel or tightening overlay when required.
3. Apply the assignment in Observe mode first.
4. Process the generated requirements and controls in Compliance Management, and close the required checks with evidence.
5. Review the apply plan again, then explicitly enable Block mode.

You can create an active PPWR assignment only for a destination market in the profile catalog. After a product update, use Check profile upgrade. Applying the upgrade creates a new assignment in Observe mode and deactivates the old version. An existing overlay must first be reviewed and rebased; Workspace does not carry that legal judgement forward automatically.

An overlay can only add to or tighten the shipped minimum contract. Workspace blocks assignments that are ambiguous at the same precedence. Assignments, overlays, role assessments, claims, and reports are bound to the complete profile identity of key, version, and digest. After a profile change, assess roles deliberately against the new rule set.

Assess roles for the transaction

Do not assess a role only for a generic goods flow. Record the sales channel, recipient disposition (end_user, reseller, or unknown), fulfilment model, and transaction parties. These include at least the seller and, where applicable, the importer, brand owner, and assembler.

Packing completion only uses an active role assessment whose transaction attributes exactly match the frozen shipment context. An own-stock assessment therefore does not cover a drop shipment, and an end-user delivery does not replace the assessment for a reseller.

Shipping and quantity reports

The packing station records concrete packages with an active specification revision, identification, weight, dimensions, contents, and material snapshot. Packages can form a tree such as pallet > carton > device packaging. Only leaf packages need shipment items. Select the contained shipment items and their quantities there. Workspace copies the order-item and variant references, unit, SKU, and name from the shipment and freezes those values. You may split a shipment item across packages, but the combined allocation must exactly match its shipment quantity.

If the underlying shipment-item data changes after allocation, Workspace blocks packing completion. Save the package again so that Workspace refreshes the server-side snapshot.

The server derives the material snapshot from the selected revision's material allocations and assembly rules; clients cannot provide it. At pack completion, Workspace resolves the destination market, profile catalog, transaction context, explicit role outcomes, facts, checks, validity, and complete item allocation. Evidence only counts when its coverage binding exactly matches the requirement, revision, and, where applicable, component or fact revision. The eu.ppwr profile also requires approved technical documentation, an EU declaration of conformity, and an applicable marking instruction. The EPR rule requires an explicit producer assessment for the same transaction context. Its outcome states whether the role applies; another role does not replace that decision.

• Observe stores warnings but allows pack completion.
• Block prevents completion when a required basis is missing.

Workspace stores the decision as an immutable shipment snapshot, including the profile-catalog digest and calculated retention deadlines. Evidence is not accepted as a durable document reference unless its tenant-bound storage object exists. For an allowed shipment decision, Workspace extends linked storage-object retention to at least five years for single-use packaging and ten years for reusable packaging; it never shortens an existing deadline. At shipment, it writes idempotent, market-neutral quantity events by material and mass. A separate regulatory projection assigns those quantities to a profile and role decision only when the producer obligation explicitly applies. This avoids counting one physical package more than once through unrelated role assessments. The specification revision, components, and material masses come from the snapshot rather than later master-data changes. Workspace writes all quantity events for one shipment together or rolls all of them back.

A changed preview does not reference a stale snapshot. After a successful pack completion, explicitly reopen packing before making corrections; Workspace invalidates existing labels and creates a new snapshot after the correction. Correct quantity errors only with a counterentry.

Under Compliance > Packaging > Reports, create a period for a legal entity, market, and profile version. After freezing it, export the result as JSON or CSV. Later ledger entries do not change a frozen report.

For Germany, first configure an active regulatory account with its registration number, system operator, and optional participation number. Then map internal material codes explicitly to the German reporting categories. Workspace creates a versioned draft from a frozen period. A compliance check must approve the draft before export. After submitting it manually through the responsible portal, record the external submission number and evidence file; only then does the record reach Submitted.

Release claims

Link product content only to active, reviewed claims in the same locale. Workspace requires a non-empty statement and a consistent validity range. On release, it also checks that the claim and its supporting facts are active, current, and not contradictory. The claim-to-fact relation is a dedicated typed record. If a claim depends on a review or calculation method that has not been published, Workspace rejects both activation and publication. It does not infer environmental claims from free text.

Verify the result

Setup is complete when you can confirm all of the following:

1. The specification list shows the packaging with a clear name and stable key.
2. The detail view separates base data, lifecycle, and technical information into dedicated areas.
3. Revisions, components, facts, and claims show readable names for referenced records. The specification tabs also show assigned packaging definitions, load carriers, and product variants; the claim tab shows assigned product content.
4. The market assignment resolves to exactly one effective profile version for the legal entity, market, and channel.
5. The apply plan contains no unresolved ambiguity. Enable Block mode only after all required checks have passed.
6. You can export a frozen test report as JSON or CSV, and later quantity entries do not change it.
7. A test package's material snapshot matches the components of the active specification revision and is read-only in the user interface.
8. Contained shipment items appear as individual rows, and their quantities cover the shipment quantity without under-allocation or over-allocation.
9. A shipment event keeps the material masses frozen in its decision snapshot, even when later master-data revisions differ.
10. A German submission draft contains only explicitly mapped material categories and cannot be exported before approval.
11. The manual submission is confirmed with an external submission number and stored evidence.

Initial scope limits

Workspace does not submit reports to national packaging registers or calculate fees. The German adapter creates, validates, and exports a submission draft; the legally effective submission remains a manual step in the responsible portal. Workspace does not manage authorised representatives.