SAP EH&S - Leading IT system in the field of Environment, Health and Safety
Companies that market their products around the world need a powerful, integrated IT system to collect data and documents in the field of hazardous substances, hazardous materials, occupational health, industrial hygiene and occupational medicine. Through interfaces and content data available on the market, it is possible to simplify the data management to some extent. Nevertheless, both the content data, the own data and supplier data must be maintained regularly, i.e. updated. A particular challenge is also the commissioning of the newly implemented system, as, as a rule, not all data can be easily or usefully migrated. With the takeover of acquired businesses or companies, there are always bottlenecks in the internal resources. This is also the case if new legal requirements, such as a switch to the CLP Regulation or the maintenance of exposure scenarios need to be implemented promptly. For companies that are not directly concerned with duties in hazardous substances or hazardous materials, data maintenance is often a challenge because the internal resources are not available. However, these companies do not want to do without an integrated logistics system.
That is why we offer you data maintenance in the SAP EH&S system locally or remotely by professionally trained staff. This support can be long term or only relate to the current support. We are familiar with the intricacies of data maintenance in the SAP EH&S system. I spent a few years in charge of content development at TechniData AG and have accompanied many implementation projects in the acquisition phase or have personally rolled out data maintenance projects.
Please contact us if you want to find out about the opportunities for support.
Master data - the backbone of your system
In the new implementation of a SAP system, in-house or legal data must be maintained. Internal company data is usually transferred from the old system and legal data are usually purchased from content providers. Before maintaining the data, the header data must be collected for the specifications, real substances, listed substances, UN listed substances, hazardous classification substances and formulae must be are compiled. This master data must be available to be able to then add the content data to this specification. Then, all this information must be updated regularly, that is, new specifications must be compiled and the current content data uploaded. Several times a year, the content provider supplies new data that must be loaded into the system. Then the real substances must be identified that are affected by the new data. It may then be necessary to update the automatic set of rules of the secondary data. These tasks require not just knowledge about the relationships and the data model in SAP EH&S, but also knowledge of hazardous substances and/or of hazardous materials.
All these activities must be carried out regularly. These activities are not fundamental tasks for which you need to allocate valuable internal resources. These are tasks that external service providers, such as KFT Chemie Service GmbH, can handle. You can then allocate your resources to deal with the product characteristics of your products and to advise management. The final release of your documents generated from the data, such as safety data sheets, labels or other documents is of course still managed within your company.
Talk to us about how we can lighten the burden for your company.
Maintenance of supplier data
To date, there is no exchange format for the electronic exchange of data in safety data sheets. For more than 20 years, efforts have continuously been made to develop an exchange format for this purpose. This has so far always failed due to the complexity of the data, the structural diversity of documents and the problem of a non-existent key phrase library.
There have also been some attempts to evaluate electronically delivered safety data sheets with the help of IT tools and to identify data fields in the safety data sheet and to thus enable an automatic entry into the SAP system. This work has also failed to obtain the desired result. However, the stream of updated safety data sheets of the suppliers is a major problem for many companies. Internal resources are not available to the extent required or needed for more specific tasks. It is not usually noticed whether any current safety data sheets are actually made available. While this is the legal obligation of the supplier, many of these suppliers do not always fulfil their obligations. But often the updated safety data sheets of the suppliers disappear somewhere in the labyrinthine organisation of the company, as they are sent to departments, such as bookkeeping, accounting, etc., and not forwarded.
KFT Chemieservice takes care of your supplier safety data sheet management on a reliable basis. With KFT Control & Care we obtain regularly updated safety data sheets from the supplier in case it fails to do so itself, we review the plausibility of the safety data sheet, clarify outstanding issues with the supplier and maintain the data in your SAP EH&S system. Based on clear rules and agreements, we can also harmonise data from different suppliers and then deposit the supplier safety data sheets in your system with the relevant material. If necessary or desired, we will also update your safety data sheets. The last release is of course carried out by your experienced responsible employees.
Find out what we can offer you in the field of KFT Control & Care for SAP. We are willing to enter into a lasting cooperation in order to solve this challenge in the long term, or we can help you with initial compliance or statutory updates, a field in which, according to our experience, a great many supplier safety data sheets are updated.
Exposure scenarios - the registration is over, the work begins
As part of the registration in accordance with the REACH Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006 dangerous substances must be subjected to a risk assessment. The risk is evaluated on the basis of uses, conditions of use and the intrinsic substance data. The information on use, the conditions of use and risk mitigation measures provides an exposure scenario. These exposure scenarios are an integral part of an extended REACH safety data sheet (eSDS). Promptly after registering, the exposure scenarios must be enclosed with the safety data sheet and made available in the local language in which the SDS is supplied.
The structure of the exposure scenarios is not regulated by law. ECHA (European Chemicals Agency) has proposed a structure for the exposure scenarios. Based on this structure, an electronic exchange format and a central phrase catalogue has been developed. The exchange format should be available for use free of charge by the end of 2013. SAP AG has already some time ago laid the foundations to maintain exposure scenarios in SAP EH&S and then to also use the exchange format.
KFT Chemical Services has years of experience in risk assessment, in the development of chemical safety reports and hence in the compilation of extended safety data sheets incorporating exposure scenarios (eSDS). A project is currently underway with a large international chemicals manufacturer to map the own data obtained from the registration of the CSRs, data from foreign chemical safety reports and data from supplied exposure scenarios as an annex to the safety data sheet in SAP EH&S. Benefit from our experience and maintain the data for the exposure scenarios in your SAP EH&S. Maintain the data, above all, so that you can use the electronic exchange format in a few months.
