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Use of ChemSW CISPro for chemical inventory and MSDS management at Rhodia, Inc.

Use of ChemSW CISPro for chemical inventory and MSDS management at Rhodia, Inc. Scott Boito. Who is Rhodia?. France-based international specialty chemicals company Formerly part of Rhone-Poulenc

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Use of ChemSW CISPro for chemical inventory and MSDS management at Rhodia, Inc.

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  1. Use of ChemSW CISPro for chemical inventory and MSDS management at Rhodia, Inc. Scott Boito

  2. Who is Rhodia? • France-based international specialty chemicals company • Formerly part of Rhone-Poulenc • We make ingredients for cosmetics, shampoos, detergents, cleaners, paints and other coatings, catalytic converters, etc. • 2006 sales of about €5 billion • US headquarters in Cranbury, NJ • North American R&D based in Bristol, PA • R&D moved from Cranbury to a newer building in Bristol in December 2005 • We have around 75 researchers plus support staff.

  3. What is ChemSW CISPro? • CISPro is ChemSW’s bread and butter chemical inventory management software application. • They have Desktop, Client/Server, and WWW versions. • There are supporting modules for MSDS management, document management, etc. • Each chemical container is barcode labeled for easy tracking throughout its “life” with barcode scanners. • Shipping documents and any other related documents can be attached to specific container records for easy management of all appropriate documentation.

  4. What is our story? • Chemical inventory and MSDS management were performed manually while in Cranbury (using Excel). • With the move to Bristol we recognized an opportunity to make these processes more efficient and we decided to centralize them with specific software solution(s). • CISPro was selected after some searching and interviewing. • A temporary employee was hired to set up the system and to perform the physical inventory immediately after the move was complete. • All researchers are responsible for entering their own chemicals and associated MSDS. • I am the application “owner” and responsible for its maintenance.

  5. Working with the system • CISPro itself is pretty user-friendly, but we have implemented formal training sessions for all employees. • The way CISPro was set up for us (by IT) was a little “non-standard” which has led to some problems. • This is not the fault of ChemSW. We take full responsibility. • The IT person who installed the application is gone – and with him the knowledge of why and how. Frustrating. • But even the non-standard installation allows us to (almost) fully utilize the applications. • There are some quirks, however.

  6. Quirks and challenges • Due to our non-standard setup, we have an issue with all users being able to change chemical records without realizing it. • In order to allow users to attach MSDS file(s) to a chemical records, they must have full edit rights. • Full edit rights have allowed some users to unknowingly change chemical names when they thought they were performing a search. • Our approach has been to “correct” the problem with further training and email reminders to search using the appropriate search box.

  7. The CISPro interface Search Box

  8. Quirks and challenges • It is not possible to make MSDS attachment mandatory. • Our greatest challenge has been to get the researchers to attach electronic versions of the appropriate MSDS to every chemical record. • I am currently running regular reports manually to determine which records do not have attached MSDS. • There is no way to automatically perform this monitoring, nor is there an internal mechanism in CISPro to alert the researcher to the omission.

  9. Problems • The temp who setup the system cut a few corners on the physical inventory. • Some labs were completely inventoried, while others were incomplete. • Because no one (or everyone) is specifically responsible for entering the chemicals and associated MSDS, sometimes they are forgotten. • Alas, centralized systems with decentralized responsibilities have issues.

  10. Advantages • Standardization of the system allows us to run simple reports. • Everyone can find relevant information for all labs. • Management of specific classes of chemicals (i.e. CMR) is much easier. • MSDS are all together and easier to query and update. • Shipping samples is much easier since all necessary documents are attached to the sample records.

  11. Future action items • It appears that Rhodia will adopt CISPro for all R&D sites globally in 2008. • Probably the Enterprise (web) version with all sites interconnected. • Physical inventory rectification in October 2007. • A first with the remote barcode scanner. • The Enterprise version should allow us to make certain fields mandatory, thus standardization of record entry will be enabled. • We should also be able to automate reports and other routine tasks.

  12. Contact Information • ChemSW: • (707) 864-0845 • Scott Boito, Rhodia, Inc: • (215) 781-6229

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