ChemNews.Com VOL 6 NO 3

Chemicals, like any business inventory, have to be managed economically and wisely. You have to assure that necessary supplies are on hand, but you don't want to tie up funds by overstocking or re-ordering until the materials are actually needed. And chemicals are a special kind of inventory which requires a significant information management effort:

- chemicals must be transported, stored, handled, and disposed of safely

- your employees, your customers, and your community may have the right to obtain information about chemicals used in your processes or stored on your site

- in case of an accident or spill, rapid access to accurate information can save lives.

Maintaining chemical inventory information is a critical business requirement for large laboratories, but it's important for small labs and businesses too. Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) are now routinely kept in many places not immediately thought of as chemical industries, such as hospitals and electric power generating stations. Even small businesses like insect exterminators and auto body shops must have inventory and safety information on hand.

Track Chemicals and Supplies

One of the leading software systems for tracking chemicals and laboratory supplies is CIS Pro, the Chemical Inventory System Pro, available from ChemSW (Fairfield, CA). Together with the MSDS Digital File Cabinet (MSDS DFC)", CIS Pro offers a comprehensive, scalable, and flexible solution capable of meeting both the general and specific requirements of all organizations that maintain chemical inventories. CIS Pro also connects with ChemOffice, the favorite of chemists worldwide for managing chemical structural data.

CIS Pro works in a single-user mode or in a network environment. It stores a tremendous amount of information about each chemical, classified by the set of topic tabs shown in Fig. 1. CIS Pro uses a container-based tracking model, so you can manage information about multiple lots and containers of any item. Identification numbers can be linked to bar-coding systems for inventory control purposes. The Ingred-ients tab makes it possible to define formulations which contain multiple chemicals, and to produce scaled batch reports for material requirements applications. As a result, CIS Pro isn't limited to pure chemicals-it can track anything in your storeroom, laboratory, or plant.

The Physical data tab contains a variety of information such as formula, molecular weight, physical constants, physical form, and storage compatibility. The Hazard data tab, Fig. 2, conforms to the NFPA Hazard Rating System (fire, health, reactivity, and specific hazards) and also maintains a link to the Material Safety Data Sheet in the Digital Filing Cabinet (see above).

At the most detailed level, some installations want to monitor each addition or removal of an item or a quantity of stock. CIS Pro has an optional transaction-logging system which records item, date, location, user, and reason for transfer. It can produce reports and warnings when supplies drop below a specified level, and it provides cost-accounting functions such as removal and addition costs per account or value of inventory. Another option, the CIS Pro Query Engine, allows ad hoc queries using a relational table model, and makes it possible to generate virtually any report on your inventory.

Use CIS Pro with ChemOffice

While safety officers, inventory managers, and other non-technical users of CIS Pro usually look up items in the system by name, CAS Registry Number, or a similar text field, chemists may want to locate items using a structure search. For example, a research chemist may have devised a brilliant new synthesis route, but to try it he'll need 500 grams of methyl 2-iodobenzoate. Is it in the building, or on the campus? If so, where? To answer these questions without any concern for ambiguities of nomenclature, the scientist may prefer to sketch the structure and search for the compound that way.

To connect with ChemOffice, the CIS Pro has a Structure tab which displays the structure. Chemical structures can be imported into CIS Pro by selecting a ChemDraw file or by searching a ChemFinder database. The chemist can browse through the records in CIS Pro, or ask to search by structure. CIS Pro then calls on the ChemFinder component of ChemOffice to conduct the structure, substructure, or similarity search. See Fig. 3. The mechanism for this link is the ChemFinder/ CIS32 OLE Automation Interface, which makes different software packages under Windows work together as if they were a single program.

Manage Safety Data

When it becomes necessary to obtain the safety information related to an inventory item, CIS Pro can retrieve data stored in its own format or connect to Material Safety Data Sheets in the MSDS Digital Filing Cabinet (MSDS DFC). This application is a document imaging facility designed to store and retrieve Material Safety Data Sheets as images. Instead of wading through stacks of papers in 3-ring binders or file cabinets, you quickly locate the required MSDS stored in your computer and view it on your computer monitor. Storing MSDS's in the filing cabinet means that there is a single copy maintained in one place, available throughout your network. The DFC makes it simple to replace or update a page, and even automatically generates request letters to suppliers for new copies of MSDS's.

How do you get your MSDS's into the DFC in the first place? The DFC is smart: its Document Acquisition Wizard, Fig. 4, leads you through the entry process for a variety of sources, including scanners, FAX modems, text files, various applications, or directly from the keyboard. It even knows how to import MSDS sheets from several Internet MSDS Servers on the World Wide Web.

CIS Pro in Action

CIS Pro is used in many industrial, adademic, and government sites. Let's take a look at some representative examples.

At a large consumer health care manufacturing facility, CIS Pro is going into action in the QC/Analytical Laboratory. This large plant regularly uses thousands of chemicals, and one of the first jobs CIS Pro will tackle is consolidating a shelf full of MSDS sheets in 3-ring binders. The lab director notes that "The system's security measures protect read-only information like the MSDS's, but lets us allow password access to the parts that we need to update." Solvent accounting is another major task. "The system will keep track of the quantities and types of solvents that people check out and give us monthly usage reports, which we can tie to re-ordering and accounting."

Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR upgraded from a simple non-chemical database method of record-keeping to CIS Pro. Gillian Gardner, Lab Director and Instructor in Chemistry, noted CIS Pro Ôs chemical intelligence puts the lab's 2,000 chemical names in the correct sequence. "We also chose CIS Pro because it could track the age, grade, and source of our chemicals, link chemicals to courses, and provide with us with cumulative usage statistics," she commented. The new system will also make it easier to see when inventories fall below re-order levels. Finally, with bar-coding in place, the system will keep much more accurate accounts of removals and additions.

Together, the MSDS Digital Filing Cabinet and the Chemical Inventory System Pro make up a highly capable, flexible chemical tracking system suitable for small or large organizations. CIS Pro works with ChemOffice, the favorite software of chemists for working with structures and models. CIS Pro takes care of the specialized needs of chemical tracking and also makes critical information available to both local and remote users. Electronic filing of MSDS documents eliminates shelves of paper while making the stored information available to any connected computer. Lab managers, purchasing agents, safety officers, and chemists will all find that CIS Pro and MSDS DFC help them spend less time tracking down information and more time making use of it.

To learn more about CIS Pro, direct your browser to www.chemsw.com/12220.htm. After the descriptive information at this address, there is a link allowing you to download a full working version of CIS Pro which is limited to a small number of records. CIS Pro representatives can also arrange for a live demonstration if your computer has the necessary teleconferencing software.