Manufacturing
Chemicals and plastics processing
Safety data sheets that change, substances that get restricted, and customers who ask.
In chemicals and plastics, documentation does not expire on a date: it expires because the rules change. A substance usable today may be restricted, and then you have to know which of your products contained it — and you only know if you asked beforehand.
The three modules
| What | Module | Why there |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier safety data sheets and composition | Trackline | They come from outside and update without notice |
| Confidentiality agreements over formulations | Consigne | Before sharing anything technical |
| Production and batch control records | SmartCheck | When a specific batch may be disputed |
Important
The safety data sheet is updated by the supplier when something changes, and they do not always send it. Marking it for annual review is the minimum: working from a four-year-old sheet is working from information that may have stopped being true.
Frameworks cited
Chemical substance registration, evaluation and authorisation, classification and labelling, safety data sheets, substance restrictions in articles, and — depending on the end product — packaging, food contact or ecodesign rules. The exact scope depends on your activity and volumes; confirm with your adviser.
Watch out
When a customer asks whether one of your products contains a specific substance, the deadline is usually short and the answer depends on sheets held by your supplier. If you have not requested them beforehand, you will not make it.
Worth knowing
Confidentiality agreements signed before sharing formulation avoid the perennial problem: technical information emailed to someone who later changes employer.
›Can I find which products use a substance?
If composition has been requested and stored per reference, yes. Otherwise it means asking supplier by supplier.
›How often should sheets be renewed?
Annually at minimum, and whenever the supplier changes formulation.
›Does it help answer a customer?
That is exactly the point: answering with a document and a date, not from memory.
A real case
The situation
A processor is asked whether a restricted substance is in its products, with a ten-day deadline.
What you do
- Checks the compositions already requested per reference
What you get
Answers in two days with documents instead of having to ask thirty suppliers.
The situation
A product's safety data sheet expires.
What you do
- Records validity on receipt
What you get
The warning arrives before the next shipment.
The situation
A client asks for one specific product's sheet.
What you do
- Checks that reference's file
What you get
You answer without phoning the supplier.
The situation
The supplier changes the formulation and nobody knows.
What you do
- Asks them to communicate any change
What you get
The change arrives before the question.
The situation
The documentation travels with the goods and gets lost.
What you do
- Also carries it accessible from a phone
What you get
A lost paper stops halting the job.
The situation
A raw material problem must be contained.
What you do
- Checks which production runs used it
What you get
Scope narrows to what is affected.
This article answers
- updated safety data sheets
- restricted substances in my products
- composition declaration to customer
- chemical compliance supplier documentation