Brenntag Utilizes 3E’s SAP EHS Solutions to Distribute and Deliver Optimized Global HSE Program
Background
Brenntag is the global market leader in full-line chemical distribution in terms of sales (based on 2008 data). Linking chemical manufacturers and chemical users the company provides business-to-business distribution solutions for industrial and specialty chemicals globally. With over 10,000 products and a highly diverse supplier base, Brenntag offers one-stop-shop solutions to more than 150,000 customers. Headquartered in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, the company operates a global network with more than 400 locations in over 60 countries. In 2009, the company realized global sales of EUR 6.4 billion (USD 8.9 billion) with approximately 11,000 people.
Brenntag’s Commitment to Safety
Brenntag is clearly committed to meeting Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) standards. Health, safety, environmental protection and preserving natural resources for the long-term are all paramount for Brenntag. If an action cannot be done safely, Brenntag will not undertake it. In recognition of the Responsible Care/Responsible Distribution program of the International Council of Chemical Trade Associations, Brenntag is actively committed to sustainable development and to the eight guiding principles outlined in this worldwide initiative. The Company enforces policies which ensure compliance to the highest standards of health, safety, product stewardship, care for the environment and quality.
To facilitate the flow of environmental content and information Brenntag has developed and implemented a detailed data sharing initiative in most European regions. Here, the Company utilizes a central SAP EH&S system as the basis for its chemical regulatory compliance program and to help manage the flow of data. Product safety data and dangerous goods data are maintained by local HSE staff in the central system. Certain processes such as Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) distribution are operated by the central system. Information supporting the logistics processes such as “dangerous goods master data” is transferred into the local system and integrated into the respective business processes. The central Master Data Administration (MDA) is responsible for Real Substances for type Annex I, while local HSE groups are responsible for shared Real Substances which are non Annex I.
Brenntag has further optimized their operations by integrating their SAP EHS system within the company’s R/3 core logistics system environment. The EH&S Specification Database pulls data from the R/3 System to use for product safety and dangerous goods management applications.
The Product Safety and Dangerous Goods Management applications are used for:
- Maintenance and management of required substance and product data
- Management of multilingual text phrases
- Creation and shipping of legally required documents
- Integration of these processes into business procedures (such as the automatic distribution of MSDSs)
The central EH&S system provides a range of data and documentation including:
- Required hazardous goods transportation information for shipping papers
- Labels
- MSDSs
- Production and distribution
- Inbound specialty chemical supplier MSDS document management
- Support for 28 languages
Compliance Challenges
As a large global company, Brenntag fully appreciates the complexities associated with facilitating compliance on an international scale. Brenntag fulfills both national and European legal requirements, which govern MSDSs, transportation of hazardous goods, labels, and global inventory customer information.
“Achieving compliance is by itself a complex undertaking; moreover, given Brenntag’s long standing commitment to environmental issues, we go beyond and execute best practices and process optimization in our management of regulatory data,” said Dr. Elena Mayer, Master Data Administration, Brenntag Holding GmbH. “A key challenge is to ensure that we consistently have the most accurate and comprehensive regulatory data available, as ever changing regulations, initiatives and directives emerge from regulatory and governing bodies on national, state and local levels.”
For example, with MSDSs, Brenntag must manage data relating to:
- Occupational Exposure Limits
- EU ANNEX I data
- other European regulations
- Transportation data (ADR, RID, IMDG, IATA)
- National regulations such as German WGK
With regard to hazardous goods transportation, the Company must manage compliance for ADR, RID, IMDG and the IATA. In the past the Company also had to produce TREM Cards.
Brenntag had all of these challenges in mind when outlining therequirements for its central EH&S system used in most European countries. The selected system had to offer:
- Integrated regulatory data content for the SAP EH&S Module at the CAS number level
- Efficient uploading of data to save significant amount of time and resources in the corporate and local HSE departments
- Change management with updating functionality to ensure the most current information
- National Product Safety data for all subsidiaries connected to the corporate EH&S System
- Specific regulatory data, most notably for a new subsidiary joining the corporate EH&S System
- Product Safety data according to European regulations
- Dangerous Goods data for ADR, RID, IATA and IMDG and proper shipping names in different languages
The 3E Solution
In 2002, Brenntag began the process of introducing a solution to meet these requirements in Europe. After learning about the Ariel line of EH&S decision support solutions, Brenntag acquired Ariel Staging Area and also subscribed to an Ariel regulatory data load for Western Europe, Global Inventories and Dangerous Goods.
In September 2003, Brenntag expanded its content subscription to also cover EU and North American data and later added Central and Eastern Europe regulatory data content. Finally, in October 2007, the company migrated to the newer Ariel Data Manager (ADM) - EHSAP platform.
Brenntag adopted ADM-EHSAP, 3E Company’s best-of-class tool for optimized loading and management of EH&S regulatory and chemical data into SAP EHS, because of its seamless integration with SAP EHS. The Company also selected ADM-EHSAP because of a number of key features and capabilities including:
- Intuitive web-based user interface
- User roles and security configuration management features
- Simultaneous multiple user access
- Content updates both online via web services and offline via CD or DVD
- Unicode support for multiple language settings
There were also a number of key enhancements that lead Brenntag to choose ADM-EHSAP including:
- Integrated Impact Analysis
- Download of HTML and Excel based reports detailing exact changes to regulations and regulatory values
- Change impact specification report summaries, including different hit lists for records and generics
“We partner with 3E because of the depth and breadth of their global chemical and regulatory content coverage,” said Dr. Mayer. “We strongly feel that 3E Company has the experience, contacts and language skills needed to stay current with global regulations. We know that the information they are providing us is always accurate and reliable. We were also strongly impressed with ADM-EHSAP’s ability to seamless load this information into our existing SAP EH&S system.”
Brenntag also appreciated the fact that ADM-EHSAP allows users to choose the chemical group that is relevant to the client’s specific chemicals and save that choice for future use. It also enables multiple filter set-ups so that users can configure filters based on the business requirements and workflows. Another critical factor in Brenntag’s adoption of ADM-EHSAP was the ability for users to efficiently review data with saved user choices, eliminating the need to load them directly into SAP EH&S during scheduled loads or subsequent batch loads.
The Implementation
Brenntag’s installation of ADM-EHSAP was divided into three distinct phases: design, implementation and deployment.
Brenntag pulled from a team of resources during the implementation. The Company’s technical and regulatory teams worked together to install and validate ADM-EHSAP prior to cut-over. Brenntag also utilized 3E’s team of technical consultants for support in the process.
Activities during the implementation phase included coordinating with the IT team to ensure availability of necessary hardware and software; establishing a project plan and timeline; migrating all customer-specific settings to the new data structures, and, finally, training the end-users.
How it Works
ADM-EHSAP provides Brenntag with easy and efficient maintenance of regulatory information for SAP EHS at the specification level. During the initial integration of data, Brenntag’s primary users made decisions about the applicability of certain regulations based on Brenntag’s unique business needs. These decisions are stored so that when future updates are loaded, the users could easily identify which regulations have changed since the last update. Users review all information before it is loaded into the central EH&S system, enabling informed decision-making related to the organization's product safety and stewardship requirements. ADM-EHSAP is a robust and scalable web based solution that supports local data repository updates over the Internet or via physical media such as CD or DVD.
Results
Since the initial implementation, Brenntag has successfully executed consistent updates using ADM-EHSAP in Europe. For technical content updates, the company utilizes an offline database configuration, in which documentation for the release of the updated data and the specific product files are posted on the Ariel Customer Download site. The system allows efficient management of phrase, phrase set, source, and regulatory list updates; SAP EH&S customization; Oracle database configuration; and data synchronisation. The Web-based user interface enables multiple user access with simultaneous data loads.
Users have found that the hit lists generated via the Impact Analysis Tool are very useful for a highly controlled, specific and efficient data update processes.
“We have significantly reduced the time required for data updates,” said Dr. Mayer.
Brenntag also utilizes the support for multiple chemical and regulatory filters to make selective regulatory updates and to add regulatory data for Central & Eastern Europe. The downloading of HTML and excel based reports detailing the exact changes to regulations and regulatory values enabled Brenntag subsidiaries to be more flexible to make decisions regarding the production and distribution of MSDSs and labels.
“Adopting 3E Company’s ADM-EHSAP and associated content solutions has brought our ability to manage compliance information for the myriad of environmental regulations impacting our business to a whole new level,” said Dr. Mayer. “Since partnering with 3E, our compliance efforts have been streamlined, which translates to increased productivity and focus on the more strategic aspects of compliance management. I would recommend 3E’s solutions to any company working to execute compliance on a global level.”
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