Chemicals Management Software Guide 11
How is chemicals management software adapting to meet professionals’ changing needs? From aggregating data to creating safety data sheets, there are software solutions for almost every chemicals management challenge. Elaine Burridge reports on the latest product developments for the sector and the business needs they aim to address. The complexity of global chemicals regulations, combined with a huge number of software packages, can make choosing the right solution difficult. As always, new and upcoming rules are the primary drivers of demand from customers, but two particular regulatory obligations stand out this year – notably, Europe’s substances of concern in products (Scip) database (covered in detail on page 21 of this Software Guide) and the new EU poison centre notifications. Both of these are challenging companies in areas such as aggregating data and compiling notifications. Of course, there are also ongoing requests for assistance with more longstanding regulations such as EU REACH,
Software providers are seeing a variety of trends from their customers. Perhaps the biggest one is an increasing focus on combining and integrating many different platforms and data sources into one system.
Integration trend According to Sanna Perkiö, founder and president of Finland-based service provider Ecobio, “more and more, customers are looking for one platform for a broad range of operations and locations in chemical management, fulfilling the requirements of several states and areas such as the EU and the federal USA”. She says the option of international corporations is to organise chemical control globally or locally, which means country-specific features, but notes that ”few suppliers can provide a solution that covers both goals perfectly”.
K-REACH, restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS), California’s Prop 65, the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of classification and labelling of chemicals and the US’s TSCA. In addition, there are new industry and productspecific rules, such as the end-of-life vehicles (ELV) Directive and changes to the automotive industry’s international material data system (IMDS) with regard to deactivating Recommendation 019 (REC 019) standardised datasheets. Other increasing areas of demand include the European Green Deal, which the European Commission adopted in December 2019 and which contains the circular economy action plan, further new and revised regulations such as the waste framework Directive (WFD), which includes the Scip reporting requirement, and changes to the EU battery Directive.
Service design, too, is an ongoing trend, says Ms Perkiö, adding that a playful and narrative design, smooth and intuitive use along with mobile use, are examples for design thinking that come from consumer applications. Artificial intelligence (AI) is also an excellent opportunity for any software but here, Ms Perkiö says, the software provider must have enough data in their system and it must be ”available and useful”. While software solutions already provide automated procedures, AI can offer chemical risk forecasts, cost forecasts, and aids for monitoring and decision making. Maaike Bilau, senior product stewardship consultant with design and consultancy group Arcadis, believes that during the next 12–18 months, software companies
will increasingly try to use AI to better predict changes in regulations, based on trending developments. For example, AI can use key words and screen articles in scientific literature to pick up on the substances likely to be restricted. Ms Bilau says customers will need help with AI, in areas such as data mining and making connections. Netherlands-based Chemycal is an example of one such organisation that can identify and predict trends and upcoming regulatory changes. Chemycal uses machine learning technologies to monitor key information sources such as governments, agencies, corporations, NGOs, research institutes, scientific journals, standardisation bodies, among many others.
Material disclosure Greensoft Technology’s president, Larry Yen, says software providers are moving into working with full material declaration (FMD) data wherever possible. Rather than just being a tool to submit and collect compliance certificates, programmes are expanding to collect FMD data and analyse and report on the details of each product and component. Recent releases by the US-based firm include a Hosted GreenData Manager version, which GreenSoft hosts securely online for customers so they do not have to manage the software’s technical installation. Greensoft has also released add-on integration modules for the Scip database and a component disclosure module, which allows firms to set up a company-wide FMD database to meet reporting requirements for Scip and IMDS.
