Joint Article Management Promotion-consortium (JAMP) was established in September 2006 as an initiative to promote cross-industrial activities contributing to its mission; establishment and dissemination of effective and workable mechanisms to facilitate disclosure/transfer of information on chemicals contained in products across the supply chain.

Accountable and prompt responses to the international trends for the management of chemicals have become indispensable to secure the competitiveness of world industry. In the case of compliance with End-of Life Vehicles (ELV) directive and Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive, for example, the automotive industry and the electrical/electronics industry have established and are operating their own mechanisms for investigating the substances in parts and materials they use. However different schemes for the investigation between industries and companies have resulted in a heavy workload and economic burden for the parties involved, and caused a lower reliability of information. The problem behind the scenes is that the party initiating investigation and the party receiving such requests both suffer from the lack of a workable system in which information on chemicals contained in “items” (i.e. articles) and in chemicals (i.e. preparations) as well as substances themselves are　 managed in an appropriate manner and disclosed/transferred smoothly within the supply chain.

In the trade of chemical substances and preparations, Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) or Material Safety Data Sheets plus (MSDSplus) have been established to provide users with chemical information. As for articles manufactured with chemical substances and preparations, the similar system to MSDS is desirable to disclose and convey chemical information of the ingredients for avoiding overload and confusion not only in the stage of investigation and procurement but also in complying with the regulations enforced in the future. Presently one of the most concerned regulatory scheme is the EU REACH (the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals).  The regulation requires information sharing between the upstream and downstream companies throughout a supply chain.  As such, an indivisual company or a single industry association is not be able to tackle this issue alone.  The industries strongly desire for developing a new system at the earliest possible stage as a consensus.  This was lead by the need for the compliance with REACH to extend the framework of the participating companies.

With the objective of solving the abovementioned issues, JAMP organized several committees pursuing the specified missions and promotes activities seeking the achievement of JAMP’s goals. These expert committees comprise:   one to provide the guideline to adequately manage chemicals contained in preparations and articles, one to provide tools and operating rules to disclose the information of chemical substances, one to develop the information infrastructure to share and convey article information, one to disseminate the newly build system domestically and overseas, and others. In addition to the promotion of these committees’ activities, JAMP will promote any activity that contributes to the realization of the aforementioned mission.