Actio Corporation, pioneer and leading provider of web-based chemical management solutions to private industry and government introduced:

Combined, these solutions form a comprehensive chemical management system for managing all aspects of the chemical life cycle. Actio's product offering is unique because it is entirely web based, requires no software and is accessed with an industry standard browser. For the customer, adoption cost is low and time to benefit is very fast.

The 1980's marked a period of sweeping legislation designed to both protect and inform personnel about chemical hazards in the workplace. In 1984, OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard was passed providing manufacturing sector employee's greater access to chemical information via chemical labeling, employee training and access to material safety data sheets (MSDS). The scope of this regulation was subsequently enlarged in 1987 and again in 1994 to include non-manufacturing facilities and distributors of hazardous substances.

Several years after OSHA implemented the Hazard Communication Standard, the Environmental Protection Agency passed the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA) and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) providing communities ready access to information about the chemicals being used by industry in the locality. SARA requires a company to file chemical inventories with federal authorities and EPCRA obligates companies using hazardous chemicals to report these annually to both state and local authorities. In addition to EPCRA, many state and local governments have since passed regulations far more stringent than the federal standard, requiring businesses to report their hazardous chemical usage in exacting detail. For emergency planning purposes, ordinances now require companies to submit chemical utilization lists and in some instances, provide current MSDS to their local hazardous response team and fire department.

The burden of regulatory compliance depends upon the location of the business in the chemical supply chain. The responsibility for the origination of the MSDS belongs to the original chemical manufacturer. The MSDS is then provided to the chemical's distributor who copies or modifies the original and forwards it on to the downstream user. The downstream user is responsible for the bulk of the compliance administration that includes; labeling, maintaining a current MSDS library, training employees, reporting chemical storage and usage under EPCRA, and reporting to state and local authorities. For the downstream user, any failure or mistake made in complying with the scope of regulations at any juncture can be extremely costly.

Today, after almost two decades of implementation, a Tellus Institute Study found that chemical consumers spend between 2 and 10 times the purchase price of a chemical on the proper handling of the chemical within their facility. Actio's chemical management solution (CMS) provides the technological infrastructure for companies to substantially reduce purchasing and handling costs associated with utilizing chemicals at any stage of the chemical supply chain. Explore each of the components to see how the Actio CMS solution can benefit your company.