Actio Regulator - Substance Inventory Tracking System

Actio RegulatorSM helps international companies meet global compliance demands, as well as continually achieve corporate sustainability goals and leaner operations via visibility into the volume of specific substances used in the manufacture of products not only by location but across all facilities – thereby avoiding penalties and reducing risk.

Actio Regulator is an online substance inventory tracking and regulatory reporting system capable of managing and tracking hazardous substances through their use in production in order to comply with global regulatory demands. For the global enterprise, Actio Regulator links with existing ERP systems and provides substance volume tracking (SVT) for all inbound and outbound product substance-level material movements. Actio Regulator allows companies to implement best practices across all facilities by providing transparency and visibility of the chemical footprint globally – while reducing costs associated with global compliance.

Challenge

Manufacturing products for the global economy has introduced a unique set of challenges for manufacturers. For example, a product manufactured for distribution in the European Union may contain components or substances that are regulated under REACH. Under the REACH regulation, the volume of those regulated substances or components entering the EU must be tracked by each production facility or legal entity and aggregated for reporting purposes. US environmental regulation appears to be heading in the same direction.

While ERP systems can track inbound and outbound movements of material inventories by location, ERPs do not track materials down to the substance level, as required for global and sometimes local compliance. In order to meet global compliance demands and effectively reduce chemical handling costs, manufacturers need a materials inventory tracking and reporting system that can augment existing ERP system capabilities by tracking the volume of substances used – converted to a standard unit of measure – throughout the entire production process by location and across all facilities.

In some cases, failure to comply with regulatory mandates could mean manufacturers have to forgo selling into those markets, potentially forfeiting millions of dollars in revenue through unrealized sales. In other cases, non compliance results in hefty penalties. For example, failure to meet air permit guidelines can result in fines of more than $75,000 per day.

Solution

Actio Regulator is an online substance inventory tracking and regulatory reporting system that manages the real-time inventory tracking of hazardous substances used in the manufacturing process throughout facilities across an enterprise. From “cradle to grave” or “cradle to cradle,” materials and their ingredients are monitored from the time they are received on site until the time of disposal. Quantity levels are tracked based on the material’s original unit of measure and converted into a standard unit of measure for analysis and reporting.

Chemicals are broken down by individual components and consolidated for cross-referencing throughout the facility. Chemical containers are individually monitored and can be located with the click of a mouse. Inventory logs, movement records, storage locations, and reoccurring usages are all tracked by Regulator's inventory functions. For example, in pharmaceutical manufacturing, Actio customers like IDEXX Laboratories use Regulator to generate an audit trail from request to consumption in accordance with FDA requirements.

Integration with ERP Systems - Actio Regulator seamlessly links with industry standard ERP systems such as SAP, Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics AX, integrating inbound inventory data (product name/chemical name, quantity, container, ship to location) into Regulator for component-level tracking throughout its use in production.

HazCom Labeling - Upon receipt of new materials, Actio Regulator generates the appropriate HazCom-compliant container labels and accounts for the new material and the quantity received.

Bar Coding - Actio Regulator works with all industry standard bar-coding systems allowing material containers to be easily tracked throughout the enterprise. A unique identification number is given to each container creating a detailed, material accounting, which can include date of receipt, material transfer histories, and container disposal records.

Emissions Reporting - HAPtracker, a module within Regulator, can flag and track by facility hazardous air pollutants (HAP) or volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for local reporting. By monitoring raw material consumption, Actio Regulator uses real-time data to calculate the total atmospheric release of hazardous emissions from the facility. Triggers can be set and individuals notified when air permit thresholds are close to being reached.

Local, State and Federal Compliance Reporting - Actio Regulator automatically generates Tier I, Tier II and Schedule R reports for compliance with federal regulations. Reports can be generated by chemical, as well as by component. Regulator also supports a variety of state and local reporting forms such as California HMIS Report (Form 2731), New Jersey Right to Know and Unidocs.

Waste Reporting – Actio Regulator is a tracking device for complete waste accounting during a material's life cycle. From the time a material enters the facility until the time it is disposed of, Actio Regulator tracks and logs the inventory movements of that material, and its components, and can generate waste stream reports for EPA requirements.

Benefits

Tracks raw materials – down to the substance level – and converts them to a standard unit of measure for compliance with global regulations such as REACH, RoHS and WEEE
Reduces the cost of compliance by automatically generating Tier I, Tier II and Schedule R compliance reports for local, state and federal regulations
Enables lean manufacturing by standardizing best practices across your facilities globally – reducing handling costs and providing efficiencies in materials inventory
Manages sustainability initiatives by rolling up greenhouse gas emission inventories and providing accurate, auditable reporting by location
Minimizes waste and resources
Provides visibility and transparency of your chemical footprint across the enterprise and enables defensible corporate sustainability leadership
A building block approach to regulatory compliance; users select the regulatory module that suits their needs
Delivered as a Software as a Service (SaaS) with no hardware and software to purchase and maintain – providing fast time to benefit and a very low total cost of ownership