Actio Corporation Debuts Gatekeeper, Completes Actio's Comprehensive Web-based Chemical Management System
As an ASP (Application Service Provider) solution, Actio CMS significantly lowers the cost of automating a company's chemical management tasks—a demanding regimen that can easily cost two to ten times the actual purchase price of a chemical. Actio CMS not only lowers such costs through automation, but also provides further savings through its Internet-based software subscription model that eliminates the need to purchase highly complex applications.
Actio Gatekeeper speeds and manages the multiple processes of screening chemicals prior to purchase, tracking approvals, managing inventory, and accounting for chemicals within the company. The process begins by prescreening a chemical against Actio's exhaustive library of government and health/safety lists; enterprises can also upload their own criteria to initiate or manage corporate objectives, such as banning carcinogens or reducing hazardous air pollutants.
Once the chemical has passed the rigorous prescreening process, a decision matrix routes the purchase request to all individuals in the enterprise who are required to review or sign-off on the purchase decision. Gatekeeper allows managers to check the status of requests at any point in the process. While the request is being routed, the CMS system places the official MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) for the chemical into another CMS system component, MSDS Vault®, ensuring that employees are compliant with all OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) requirements.
"Gatekeeper is a natural extension of our chemical management solution," said Russ McCann, president of Actio Corporation. "Our customers have requested an expert system that manages all aspects of the chemical lifecycle. Gatekeeper rounds out our product line and offers unparalleled accountability and chemical control to our client base."
End-to-End Management
In addition to its other product lifecycle management benefits, Gatekeeper maintains a uniquely chemical-centric view—a trait especially valuable in the biotechnology and semiconductor markets where chemicals are the primary ingredients for producing new products.
Such a capability, for example, allows users to establish a BOM (Build of Materials) containing all the chemical and non-chemical components of a product. Collaborators working at different locations can share information in a common area of the module as well as upload supporting documentation and keep an audit trail of the development process.
As to inventory management, Gatekeeper tracks inventory down to micro-locations so users know what inventory is located at what facility, who requested it, and who authorized the purchase. The process streamlines the rebalancing and repurposing of inventory and makes it easy to determine cross-utilization of chemicals across all a company's facilities. What's more, inventory can be synchronized with an Enterprise Resource Planning system, alleviating the need to enter historical inventory data.