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ArrMaz & 3E’s MSDgen: Working Together to Achieve Global EH&S Conformance

Background

ArrMaz is a privately-held specialty chemical manufacturer focused on delivering effective solutions that create customer value. With its roots in Florida phosphate, ArrMaz has grown to be a global leader in supplying the fertilizer, mining, asphalt, construction, and industrial minerals market segments, doing business in over 70 countries. The company continually strives to adapt to its customers’ changing needs while also providing world-class customer service. The commitment continues to lead ArrMaz into new markets, new applications, and new geographies and customers.

Challenges

As a global manufacturer, ArrMaz faces significant environmental, health and safety (EH&S) regulatory compliance challenges, including the burden of providing accurate and comprehensive safety data sheets (SDSs) and labels in each of the markets that it serves.

Initially, to help streamline the development of these critical documents, ArrMaz deployed a SDS authoring and hazard communication software solution without the features and functionality of 3E’s MSDgen. After using the tool for a year, they began to notice several shortcomings.

“In our previous SDS authoring system, we would have to manually determine and enter the GHS classifications for each product,” said Rachel Mathis, CIH, EH&S Specialist, ArrMaz. “As you can imagine, when your product line includes over 500 unique products, and each product can contain up to 30 substances, authoring became a very time consuming and often frustrating process.”

“Our previous authoring platform didn’t have the global capabilities that our team required to author multi-jurisdictional, multi-lingual SDSs and labels,” said Ron Thomas, Director – Regulatory Compliance, ArrMaz. “Developing each document was a very manual process – every SDS had to be developed individually, and the mixture rule calculations did not consistently provide the outputs that we desperately needed.”

ArrMaz, which ships to approximately 70 countries, had an urgent need for a new authoring solution – one that could help the company quickly and efficiently author comprehensive and accurate SDSs and labels with the classification, rules logic, and unique SDS and label template layouts required by each country and region.

“Our biggest challenge is our need to author in multiple country formats and languages, combined with an often aggressive timeframe for document development,” said Mr. Thomas. “Often times, we will receive a request for an SDS, and the completed document needs to be turned around just a day or two later. With our previous system we just couldn’t keep up with the demands of our commercial and R&D groups."

The team began searching for a replacement solution to help alleviate the burden of authoring multi-jurisdictional, multi-lingual SDS documents and labels. After participating in demonstrations with several different vendors, ArrMaz ultimately chose 3E’s award-winning MSDgen SDS authoring platform after it was recommended by a long-time, trusted business associate.

Solutions

“We were very impressed with MSDgen during our initial demo,” said Mr. Thomas. “It features some very impressive capabilities, including the ability to build products by material, as well as an extensive array of GHS templates.”

“In comparing MSDgen to the competition, it became quite clear that no other tool had the impressive global capabilities that MSDgen offered,” said Ms. Mathis. “Some tools looked good on paper, but after the demonstration it became clear that they didn’t possess the depth of capabilities and regulatory knowledge that we required.”

MSDgen is 3E Company’s premiere SDS and label authoring system, providing in-house environmental, health and safety (EH&S), research and development (R&D) and product stewardship professionals the tools needed to effectively manage the complexities of producing and maintaining globally compliant and reliable hazard communication documentation. The 3E team works with customers to achieve the highest possible long-term value by providing SDS authoring software and management tools that are easily adapted to work within various business and technical environments – even in complex global environments such as ArrMaz’s.

Benefits

The team began to notice significant improvements in efficiency and accuracy once it began to develop documents in MSDgen, authoring more than 2,000 SDSs a year since MSDgen has been deployed in a range of languages, including Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Polish, Lithuanian, Malaysian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Slovakian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese. As the company continues to expand its business, it anticipates that it will author in additional languages.

“MSDgen has had a tremendous impact on our productivity,” said Ms. Mathis. “Consider the fact that in January 2013 – before we deployed MSDgen – we authored 13 SDS; in January 2014, that number climbed to 21 SDSs. In February 2014, that number climbed to 42.”

The ArrMaz team attributes this increase to several key features of MSDgen, including reliable customer service and the company’s impressive regulatory data and expertise.

“I think that 3E’s vast regulatory knowledge and expertise is an impressive competitive differentiator,” said Mr. Thomas. “3E has an expanse of regulatory knowledge that’s applied to each of its solutions, including MSDgen. Its country-specific regulatory knowledge is unparalleled and it gives us confidence that we are authoring accurate conforming documents, no matter what the language.”

MSDgen also helps ArrMaz address complex confidential business information (CBI) issues. “MSDgen takes some of the guesswork out of navigating confidentiality claims; it helps us determine what can be claimed, and what can be kept confidential in each individual country. It can be difficult to manage the CBI requirements of multiple countries, and we strive to keep our proprietary formulas as cloaked as possible. MSDgen keeps us on track and helps ensure we are disclosing what is required,” said Mr. Thomas.

ArrMaz also appreciates MSDgen’s large library of GHS-conforming templates. “Having access to all of the GHS templates is a huge benefit,” said Ms. Mathis.

MSDgen’s country specific GHS classification module and streamlined update process supports more than 18 unique GHS adaptations. The module addresses multiple versions of the Purple Book and dozens of other country-specific hazard communication standards and features a complete set of configurations, calculations, rules, and document templates, including new SDSs, labels, and GHS classification sheet documents.
The team has also been impressed by the powerful system’s relative ease of use. “In contrast to our previous system, we only have to set up our preferences and calculations once. As soon as that’s done, MSDgen is very automatic, which undoubtedly increases our efficiency and productivity,” said Mr. Thomas.

And if ArrMaz has any questions, they know they can easily access the team of experts at 3E. “We have been very happy with the level of support we receive from 3E. Sometimes we get caught in a bind and need help very quickly, and 3E is always there to assist. I would rate its people and their expertise very highly. We look forward to working with them for many years to come,” said Ms. Mathis.


Location: Mulberry, FL
3E Services: MSDgen
Industry/Market: Chemical Manufacturing
Company Web Site: http://www.arrmaz.com








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