Would you like such savings too?
Today, I'm sharing with you a true story about how we managed to organize the chemical documentation for 170 products (including UFI codes and PCN notifications) in one of the major Slovenian companies in just over a month, saving them €634.37 in the process.
As an added bonus, we freed up 3 to 5 individuals who were previously involved in the creation/updating of chemical documentation.
Let's start from the beginning.
At the initial meeting, the company explained to us that they have over 300 different raw materials and manufacture around 170 different products.
They manually create safety data sheets for all products using Microsoft Word. They also design and print labels, then maintain and update them in accordance with changes in local and EU legislation. Safety data sheets are produced in numerous EU languages.
Between 3 to 5 individuals are actively involved in activities related to the creation, updating, storage, sending, notifying, and printing. Those familiar with chemical legislation and documentation know that this is a continuous, uninterrupted process.
Therefore, it's no surprise that according to them, they spend most of their work hours on this, even though it's officially only part of their job duties. Can you imagine?
At this meeting, we agreed on collaboration and the approach. They gathered all the current safety data sheets for raw materials and checked the formulations.
Then, together, we identified "families" of chemicals that are so similar in composition and hazard type that a single (common) safety data sheet can be produced for them. This formed the basis for the first saving – avoiding unnecessary costs.
Many products were combined as synonyms, meaning they only differ in trade names.
In the composition (section 3 in SDS) and physicochemical properties (section 9 in SDS), we defined ranges that encompassed all instances within the same family. For example, the first product had a density of 0.9 kg/l, and the second had 1 kg/l. For density, we entered the value in the safety data sheet as 0.9-1 kg/l.
Thus, we reduced the number of safety data sheets by 43%, from 170 to 97. And from here came the first saving of €634.37 monthly, which would have been the additional amount if we had to create all 170 SDSs.
The second saving – freeing up 3 to 5 people – stems from us taking over all activities related to the creation and updating of chemical documentation. Labels can now be automatically printed from the system. We also streamlined the sharing of updated SDSs. All SDSs were available online (and on phones), where they always accessed the latest valid version of SDS without them doing anything themselves.
In other words, activities that used to take up the entire days of 3 to 5 people were minimized through the Chemius Expert service or outsourcing. This allowed them to focus on challenges that they had previously postponed due to lack of time.
Interested in how our collaboration with this company is going today?
The company's management has empowered us to assist them with the next step of digitalization – APIs, which will further relieve people, reduce the number of errors, and at the same time accelerate and increase the reliability of the entire company's operations.
If you're unsure what an API is, here's a quick summary in one sentence. An API, or Application Programming Interface, is like a bridge that enables different applications to effectively communicate and collaborate with each other.
That should be enough for today. If you also need more time for other business challenges, write to me at spela.hudobivnik@bens-consulting.eu.
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