Overview#
IMDS is where the car industry records what its parts are made of. A supplier enters the material breakdown of a component, and that data travels up the supply chain until a vehicle manufacturer can see the full composition of everything that goes into a car.
How it works#
Each company reports the parts it makes as a Material Data Sheet. An MDS describes a part as a tree of materials and substances, with the percentages of each. Lower tiers submit their sheets to the tier above, who reference that data inside their own assemblies. By the time the data reaches the carmaker, a single part can carry the contributions of many suppliers below it.
What the data is checked against#
The substances that must be reported come from the GADSL. The GADSL is maintained specifically for the automotive sector and flags substances that are prohibited or declarable. Reporting against it is how IMDS connects raw composition data to the legal obligations under ELV and REACH.
IMDS is one form of material declaration, built for one industry. Other sectors use schemes such as IPC-1752A or chemSHERPA, but the underlying idea is the same: pass composition data up the chain in a structured, reusable way.
Who runs it#
IMDS was developed by major vehicle manufacturers and is operated as a shared industry system. Most automotive suppliers worldwide hold an account, because submitting an MDS is a normal condition of doing business with a carmaker.