Final Report Summary - CHEMXCHANGE (Development of a cost effective system for exchanging information and managing risks of chemicals for the construction industry, addressing new challenges related to European chemical legislation)
Executive Summary:
The initial work in the ChemXchange project has focused on identification of regulatory framework, organizational needs and user behavior in order to specifically adapt the system to construction sector requirements and SME construction end user needs in particular. The activity has included questionnaires addressing suppliers and users of chemical products in order for the ChemXchange system to meets the expectations of the users. Further, identification and evaluation of relevant European and national legislation has been performed in order to identify legislation relevant for the definition of content and functionality in the ChemXchange system and to ensure that the solutions meet the specific legislative requirements. Specially, REACH regulations have been especially evaluated in order to ensure that the ChemXchange solution is fully REACH compatible.
Based on the identification of regulatory framework, organizational needs and user behavior, the detailed system specifications were defined and the software system was developed. In order to address the issues of lack of reliable information regarding chemicals in the workplace, the system specification include development of a common platform integrating all relevant chemical information primarily dominated by Safety Data Sheets. Key functionalities with regards to Safety Data Sheets include facilitating import of SDS from the chemical supplier and an interface with software solutions for preparation of Safety Data Sheets, exposure scenarios, translation of SDS information between different languages, tools for electronic chemical information exchange up and down the supply chain, multi- accessible and searchable safety data sheet (SDS) database with SDS raw data (XML-format) and tool for logging and informing on quality assurance of SDS
The ChemXchange system is a software application complying with REACH and chemical legislation. The system has been demonstrated and the feedback from end-users testing the system has been positive indicating that the system is fit for its purpose:
a) It helps end-users to comply with legal requirements and EU regulation (REACH).
b) It makes it possible to efficiently communicate chemical information up and down the supply chain between the different actors involved in the use of dangerous substances, from manufacturer through intermediaries to end user.
c) It makes it possible to quickly identify and react to specific hazardous chemicals at the individual workplace, safeguard the workers and reduce the environmental pollution.
d) It eliminates a significant part of the management burden for construction SMEs, as many lack the knowledge, resources and systems for properly controlled chemical management.
e) It facilitates the proper handling of waste.
f) It helps performing risk management to ensure safe use and handling of chemicals by a Built-in functionality for risk assessment and substitution.
The software system developed has been evaluated compered to the relevant legislation and the content and functionalities of the ChemXchange management system will strongly contribute and facilitate the obligations of the user of chemicals in the workplace. In addition, a major conclusion is that the ChemXchange system is of great assistance to enterprises whom will implement and follow quality and environmental standards including ISO 9001, ISO 14001, BS OHSAS 18001.
The ChemXchange software system has been developed in several European languages including English, German, French, Italian, Norwegian and Lithuanian. The ChemXchange system was officially launched and presented in a major event in Oslo the 10th of December 2012. Further exploitation and roll out plans for different European countries have been prepared and will be followed post project period.
Project Context and Objectives:
The objective of ChemXchange is to offer the European construction sector a tailormade, low-priced, fully digitalised system for collecting Safety Data Sheets (SDS) and information on building products. The system will ensure communication up and down the supply chain and effective chemical management, including risk assessment and substitution. The ChemXchange project addresses the challenges in the European construction and building sector and will ensure compliance with existing and new chemical legislation.
The building and construction sector is Europe’s largest industrial employer, and is a major downstream user of chemicals and products containing chemicals. Workers in this sector can be exposed to some of the most dangerous substances in commerce, including those that are harmful, toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic or harmful to reproduction. It has been estimated that chemical exposure costs the construction industry almost two million cases of illness every year and at least 98 million days of work absences. Associated direct costs are estimated to be nearly €75billion/year.
Chemical safety in the workplace represents a significant management burden for our sector and for SMEs in particular since many employers lack the necessary knowledge, resources and systems for properly controlled chemical management.
The ChemXchange system will provide a powerful tool for managing your chemicals to ensure protection of workers from health risk and prevent harmful effects to the environment. The ChemXchange system will help the building and construction sector to:
• Comply with legislation and customers requirements
• Get an overview of the chemicals you are using in your projects
• Effective communication with your chemical suppliers
• Perform risk assessment and substitute harmful chemicals with less harmful alternatives
• Identify and implement preventive measures to protect workers health and the environment
• Inform your workers correctly with reliable information
• Establish working procedures and specific instructions
• Exchange information between different projects with regards to experiences and recommended best practice
This ChemXchange project addresses the collective challenge faced by the SMEs in the construction sector of complying with today’s obligations and regulatory requirements regarding exchange of information on hazardous chemicals between various actors in the sector. The ChemXchange chemical information exchange system do fulfill the needs of the European construction sector regarding compliance with the new European chemical legislation (REACH) including challenges connected with chemical risk assessment, chemical communication and chemical management. ChemXchange offer the construction sector a tailor-made, low-priced, fully digitalized system that centralizes the collection and quality assurance of the required chemical information. The ChemXchange project has established a sector-driven chemical information exchange system that is particularly adapted to fulfill the identified SME needs. The Scientific Objectives of the project is:
• Enhanced knowledge about European and national chemical legislation, standards and policies
• Enhanced understanding of the influence of European new chemical legislation REACH on today’s and future construction sector chemical information exchange practices
• Gather knowledge about construction sector chemical end user understanding of chemical risks and behaviour towards information
• Gather knowledge about the internationalization of European construction sites and problems related to technology use, culture and language
• Gather knowledge about chemical suppliers’ information delivery practices and needs
• Gather knowledge about different construction SME end users’ needs
• Development of system framework such as user and supplier agreements, chemical procurement requirements and chemical information delivery specifications
The Technological Objectives are:
• Development of a chemical information exchange system that safeguards the specific needs of the construction SMEs, including the development of tools/modules such as:
• A common platform integrating all art of relevant chemical information primarily dominated by
• SDSs (as specified by the SME-AG members)
• Tools for electronic chemical information exchange up- and down the supply chain
• Tool for preparing and revising SDS in Norwegian, English, Lithuanian and Italian.
• Multi- accessible and searchable safety data sheet (SDS) database with SDS raw data
• (XML-format)
• Tools for risk assessment, substitution and risk management modules as well as health,
• environment and safety (HES) management system modules
• Modules for individually establishing projects/sub-projects with automatic connection to
• centralised SDS database, allowing automatic information update
• Tool for logging and informing on quality assurance of SDS
• Various automatic information routines (e.g. SDS/risk info update alert)
• Historical logging of user information (for a period of 10 yrs),
• Possibilities to compile various user statistics
• Integrated system for managing agreements, fulfilling all legal obligations
• Option to establish common and/or individual management requirements such as chemical
• procurement or management requirements
• Integration with relevant external software solutions such as HES management systems
• Development of software solution, including planning, development and testing
The work plan is structured in the following Work Packages:
• WP 1: Scientific understanding and identification of key operational parameters
• WP 2: System specification
• WP 3: Software development
• WP 4: System tests, validation and assessment
• WP 5: Demonstration of pilot system
• WP 6: Innovation related activities
• WP 7: Training
• WP 8: Consortium management
The project includes the following RTD deliverables and milestones:
• Deliverables:
• D1.2. Report on Regulatory requirements and REACH.
• D1.3. Report on end user survey and user behaviour in work situations.
• D1.4: Report on existing approaches to exchange of chemical information.
• D2.1. System v1.0 Specification.
• D.2.2. User case model & test case scenario document.
• D2.3: System v2.1 specification
• D3.1: Software v1.0
• D3.2: Module test results check list
• D3.3: Stage 1 user trials manual
• D3.4: Software v2.0
• D3.5: Software v2.1
• D4.1: Analysis of the tests on the preliminary pilot system.
• D4.2: Analysis of the tests on the second pilot system.
• D4.3: Usability test results of both versions
• D4.4: Validation of system against EU legislation
• Milestones:
• MS1 - Completion of the scientific investigation.
• MS2 - System v1.0 specification.MS 3: System v2.1 specification
• MS3 -
• MS4: Software v2.0
• MS5: Stage 1 user manual
• MS6: Software v2.0
• MS 7: Software v2.1
• MS8: Validation of tests results from v1.0
• MS9: Validation of test results from v2.0
• MS10: Start of train the trainer program
Project Results:
The initial work in the ChemXchange project has focused on identification of regulatory framework, organisational needs and user behaviour in order to specifically adapt the system to construction sector requirements and SME construction end user needs in particular. The activity has included questionnaires addressing suppliers and users of chemical products in order for the ChemXchange system to meets the expectations of the users. Further, identification and evaluation of relevant European and national legislation has been performed in order to identify legislation relevant for the definition of content and functionality in the ChemXchange system and to ensure that the solutions meet the specific legislative requirements. Specially, REACH regulations have been especially evaluated in order to ensure that the ChemXchange solution is fully REACH compatible.
Design of software management system and its functionalities specified in WorkPackage 2, has been based on the scientific findings in WP 1 on the regulatory framework, organisational needs and user behavior in order to adapt the system to construction sector requirements and SME construction end user needs in particular. Especially results from the questionnaire including suppliers and users of chemical products have been especially focused in order for the system to be developed meets the expectations of the users. Further, identification and evaluation of relevant European and national legislation has been an important element of the ChemXchange project, in order to identify legislation relevant for the definition of content and functionality in the ChemXchange system and to ensure that the solutions meet the specific legislative requirements. Specially, REACH regulations were especially evaluated in order to ensure that the ChemXchange solution is fully REACH compatible.
In order to address the issues of lack of reliable information regarding chemicals in the workplace, the ChemXchange project, the system specification include development of a common platform integrating all relevant chemical information primarily dominated by Safety Data Sheets. Key
functionalities with regards to Safety Data Sheets specified in WorkPackage 2 has included:
• Facilitating import of SDS from the chemical supplier and an interface with software solutions for preparation of Safety Data Sheets.
• Exposure scenarios
• Translation of SDS information between different languages
• Tools for electronic chemical information exchange up and down the supply chain
• Multi- accessible and searchable safety data sheet (SDS) database with SDS raw
• data (XML-format)
• Tool for logging and informing on quality assurance of SDS
The system specified in WorkPackage 2 has especially focused on the following 3 critical elements on order to achieve the main objectives:
1) Establishing company profile and hierarchy
2)Purchase of product
3)Safe Handling of chemicals, incl. safe use of products, correct waste handling and correct actions in un-normal situations/accidents
Accordingly, the following key content and functionalities have been further specified in WorkPackage 2:
• Safety Data Sheets (from the SDS database)
• Exposure scenarios (from the SDS database)
• Company profile and hierarchy (workplace structure)
• Register of chemical products used
• General workplace information and workplace waste plan
• Generate specific instructions/procedures for use of chemicals
• Risk assessment and sub-station
• Generate filters (list of prohibited and unwanted substances/products) and compare chemical register with filters
• Provide transfer of information and ensure transfer of knowledge
• Exposure and health surveillance register
• Generate reports/provide historic data and archives
ICB has processed the information with regards to v2.1 Specification into the Business Process Models. Further information is provided in deliverable D2.3 Report: “System v2.1 specification”. WorkPackage 2 have been successfully completed including Milestone 3: System v2.1 specification”.
WP3 – Software development: The main objective of WorkPackage 3has been the development of ChemXchange software system on the basis of the system requirements described and specified in previous activity in the project and especially the system specification developed in WorkPackage 2. The development was split into 3 main deliverables the first of which was meant to provide basic functionality to be used for test, trial demos and training at early stage. The two following software versions were intended to provide more advanced functionality together with enhancements on the basis of feedback from testing.
As described in DoW, project development have been spread across 14 calendar months from 32 (M32) to month 46 (M46). For better control over the process the schedule was split into sprints of duration of 1 calendar month grouped into 6 numbered iterations. Following a predefined set of prioritized functional requirements the iterations were aimed to providing a stable and testable piece of the ChemXchange system.
During the system design phase for the project, ICB followed the respective process in the adopted quality management system (QMS) ISO 9001:2008. In the process of the system design the following artifact types were prepared:
• Graphical user interface mockups
• Navigation diagrams
• Use case diagrams
• Network architecture
• Data model
• Program flow chart diagram
• Access diagram
For early evaluation of the most suitable design solutions and getting feedback from the project partners ICB adopted the prototyping approach. With each prototype there was created a proof of concept that presented the main capabilities of the final solution in technical, performance and usability perspectives. The most significant prototypes created include management safety data sheets, multilingual template system notifications, reports and generation of PDF documents.
The ChemXchange system was built as a typical 3+1 tier web application. The main system programming modules are:
• UI - User Interface Layer
• On-client User Interface Layer
• SL - Service Layer
• BL - Business Layer
• DAL - Data Access Layer
• DB - Database
During the development process ICB applied the established coding standards, design guidelines and reused proven system design incorporated in a company framework for ASP.NET web solutions. The framework intended to lead developers in the best practices for the main daily activities and provided tested stable foundation to build on.
The main goal of Software v.1.0 was the implementation of the core Workplace and Products module functionalities and preparation of system design of the Safety Datasheet module. Software v.1.0 coding is described in detail in the corresponding deliverable D3.1 Software v.1.0 report from the referenced documents list.
The validation of system modules was performed following ICB internal ISO 9001:2008 QMS process for software quality assurance. ChemXchange software test activities were scheduled according to the project development plan and described in details in the master test plan for the system. Test process deliverables were created and maintained continuously during every phase of the project development. Software test report document was continuously filled in parallel with development progress and delivered at sprint completion. The prepared artifacts documenting the test coverage and results are of the following types:
• Master test plan
• Iteration test plans - describe the testing tasks for planned iteration.
• Test matrices - matrices between functionality – test cases
• Test scenarios - Test case descriptions
• Test Reports incl. summary test report for the iteration, detailed test cases reports and bug statistic report
The main goal of Software v.2.0 was the implementation of main Workplace and Products module tools such as: Exposure Scenario, Risk Assessment, Comments and enhancement of user dashboards. The main goal in the Safety Datasheet module was SDS document entry, translate SDS document and impersonation. After Software v.2.0 it was planned that the project will be ready for dissemination and demonstration. At the end of this Software v.2.0 ICB started gathering input from the associations. Software v.2.1 was planned to contain only functional requirements with business criticality level “should” and “could”. The main focus of Software v.2.1 was to refine ChemXchange application based on feedback from dissemination and own performance test. In addition a special attention was paid to reporting, distribution of information from the system, SDS quality assurance, register of exposure employees and adding products and documents.
As part of WorkPackage 3, a test procedure has been prepared and distributed to the test panel to be followed during the testing of version 01 of the ChemXchange software system. This test procedure included screen shots and a step by step guideline to be followed during the testing. The ChemXchange software system has been developed in several European languages including English, German, French, Italian, Norwegian and Lithuanian. The testing of version 01 has included tests performed by end users in Norway, Italy, France and Lithuania and in order to support the tests in the different countries, the test procedure has been translated to the different countries included in test of ChemXchange version 01.
Further information is provided in following deliverable reports:
• Deliverable D3.1 Report: Software v1.0
• Deliverable D3.2 Report: Module test results check list
• Deliverable D3.3 Report: Stagae 1 user trials manual
• Deliverable D3.4 Report: Software v2.0
• Deliverable D3.5 Report: Software v2.1
WorkPackage 3 have been successfully completed including Milestones 4 “Software v1,0”, Milestone 5 “Stage 1 user trials manual”, Milestone 6 “Software v2.0” and Milestone 7” Software v2.1”.
WP4 - System tests, validation and assessment: The testing of the ChemXchange system has included a test of the main end user system, i.e the “Workplace& Products” as well as the SDS module. The activity in WorkPackage 4 also has included the key results from validation of the ChemXchange system with REACH. In addition, validation against “existing” EU legislation and compliance with ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and BS OHSAS 18001 has been included. This activity is not specified in the DoW, but is included based on a request from the SME-AG and SME partners in the project.
A test procedure was prepared and distributed to the test panel to be followed during the testing of version 01 of the ChemXchange main end user system, i.e the “Workplace& Products”. In order to facilitate the reporting by the end users performing the test of ChemXchange software system version 01, a test report was prepared. Further information with regards to the test procedure is included in Deliverable D3.3 Stage 1 user trials manual. Tests performed in:
• Norway: Teknologisk Institutt AS – include 2 large contractors of which Skanska AS is partner in the project (4- 6 test persons per company)
• Lithuania: Kaunas University of Technology – include one contractor
• Italy: Labor – include 3 contrators of which Lugea SpA is partner in the project
• France: Labor – include 1 contractor, 1 H&S expert and 1 craftmen association.
The results from the testing of the main end user system, i.e the “Workplace& Products” was very positive and is presented in Deliverable D4.1 Report “Analyses of the tests on the preliminary pilot system”.
Tests have been performed on the SDS module following its development stages during 2012. This testing has revealed some errors and misunderstandings as well as identified elements that can be improved for increased user friendliness and these elements has been included in the last revision of the software system. The results from the testing of the SDS module are presented in Deliverable D4.2 Report “Analyses of the tests on the second pilot system”.
The overall assessment is that the ChemXchange system comply with REAC and assist the upstream and downstream users to fulfill their obligations according to REACH by:
• Communicate uses upstream
• Compare information and advice of supplier with own conditions
• If not in compliance, communicate with supplier or notify deviance and prepare CSR
• Follow bans and restrictions
• Apply for authorisation, if necessary
• Search for alternatives for substances of very high concern or substances with high expected regulatory outcome (HERO)
• CXC system will help user execute obligations and there are many other functionalities
WorkPackage 1 in the ChemXChange projects has evaluated the different existing EU legislations relevant for the ChemXchange system to be developed. The following directives was evaluated as highly relevant with regards to the content and the functionalities of the ChemXchange system:
• EU Directive 98/24
• EU Directive 90/394
• EU Directive 97/42
• EU Directive 1999/38
• EU Directive 2003/53
With regards to the different directives, the testing and validation of the ChemXchange project conclude that the content and the functionalities of the ChemXchange management system will strongly contribute and facilitate the obligations of the user of chemicals in the workplace.
International standards with relevance to the ChemXchange project include:
• ISO 9001: Quality management systems
• ISO 14001: Environmental management systems
• BS OHSAS 18001: Occupational health and safety management systems – Requirements
These standards provide requirements for quality management, environmental and occupational health and safety management systems. ChemXchange management system for chemicals can have a significant contribution with regards to companies who will follow these standard and the ChemXchange system can be of great assistance with regards to implementation of key requirements in the specific standards.
Further information is provided in following deliverable reports:
• Deliverable D4.1 Report: Analyses of the tests on the preliminary pilot system
• Deliverable D4.2 Report: Analyses of the tests on the second pilot system
• Deliverable D4.3 Report: Usability test results of both versions
• Deliverable D4.4 Report: Validation of system against EU legislation
WorkPackage 4 has been successfully completed including Milestones 8 “Validation of test results from v1.0” and Milestone 9” Validation of test results from v2.1”.
WP5 – Demonstration of pilot system: WP5 Demonstration has focused on organized demonstration activities to allow SME end-user and information providers in the chemical industry to learn about the pilot system. The SME-AGs EBA, FIEC, UNIEP and GCI have played a central role in the demonstrations and suitable venues in the construction sector (meetings, conferences, seminars) to demonstrate the pilot system. The demonstration events have usually been arranged as a part of the dissemination events and strategy and demonstration events have also been combined with the testing of the ChemXchange management system. Demonstration events arranged during the course of the project include:
• 13/04/2012: FIEC: Demonstration of first prototype – TEC 3 Environment Sub commission
• 12/05/2012: SME-AG: Workshop Milan, Italy
• June 2012: TI several events with Skanska and Veidekke in Norway
• June 2012: EBA/coBuilder: General Assembly, Bergen, Norway
• 14-15/06/2012: UNIEP: General Assembly in Lucerne, Switzerland
• 07/09/2012: FIEC – final presentation of second prototype – TEC 3 Environment Sub commission
• 10/10/2012: EBA/coBuilder: Launch conference, Oslo
• 19/10/2012: Labor : Workshop ¡§Made Expo¡¨, Milan, Italy
• 20/10/2012: KTU: Workshops for industries, authorities, 3 events in Vilnius (18/10/2012), Kaunas (19/10/2012) and Klaipeda (20/10/2012)
• 08/11/2012: UNIEP, UK Painting and Decorating association, Manchester, UK
The demonstrations has included a short introduction to the ChemXchange project followed by a presentation of the ChemXchange management system accessing the pilot versions online available from the tests servers and then demonstrating the key content and the functionalities of the ChemXchange system.
The demonstrations of the ChemXchange system have received positive evaluations. For further information, please also see Deliverable D4.1 Report including end user evaluation and assessment from the testing of the ChemXchange system.
Further information is provided in the deliverable D5.1 Report: Report in feedback from the demonstrations regarding system improvements, user reactions etc. WorkPackage 5 is successfully completed.
WP6 – Innovation related activities: The ChemXchange project has been presented at the following external (i.e. not conferences and events arranged by the project) conferences and major exhibitions:
• Promotional Event in Berlin 18th of February 2010 during the Build IT trade fair
• Bygg reis deg – trade fare Oslo, Norway, October 2011
• Byggvaredagene, 25/03/2008, Oslo, Norway
• Bygg reis deg – trade fare, Lillestrom, Norway, 22-27. October 2012
• Trade fare Byggdagene, Oslo, Norway 18/03/2010
In addition, articles have been presented in the several publications promoting the main launch of the project in Oslo, 10th of December 2012. Further information with regards to these different events is presented in the D8.3 Dissemination and Utlilization Plan (DUP) under section 2 Dissemination.
Within the frames of this project, the ChemXchange system has been developed and demonstrated, and the software is now ready to be commercialized as an industry solution for the construction SMEs Europe-wide. The project has a trans-national approach and all system users are online the same system and database regardless of which country they are operating in. The ChemXchange will be introduced system progressively and a roll-out plan is organized in 4 roll-out steps. The degree and rate of expansion will depend on the construction SMEs acceptance. The uptake of the developed ChemXchange system will be influenced by:
• The activity in the construction sector,
• Validation of the system against national market requirements
• The license price.
An Implementation strategy plan for dissemination and use in project and post project has been prepared as part of activity in Work Package 6 and has included a roll out and financing plan for post project period 2013 to 2016, licencing and agreements, national roll-out adjustments, new marked opportunities and further cooperation between the SME-AG partners.
An external, public web site, www.chemxchange.com has been established and an internal project hotel is established in Basecamp. Only members of the consortium has had access to Basecamp. Basecamp is delivered by the American based company 37Signals. It is a project management system that focuses on communication and collaboration. The Basecamp account is password protected and includes SSL security.
The project has prepared support materials during the project period. Two leaflets/brochures has been produced. Leaflet no. provides a more comprehensive presentation of the ChemXchange project while leaflet no. 2 does especially target the members of the SME-AGs as their primary audience. Both leaflets have been produced in 7 languages incl. English, German, French, Italian, Norwegian and Lithuanian. In addition to the printed copies, high resolution files of the different leaflets has been distributed to the different partners for later printing of additional copies. A pdf file of the different brochures has also been made available for downloading from the project web site.
The activity in WorkPackage 5 has included evaluation of securing the foreground developed in the project include projects results and IPR, Management of intellectual property as well as plan to secure the source code and securing the Web domains. The Results of the Project do not include inventions that justify a patent application. The Results are of a different nature, and the project partners have not found grounds for such applications. All work related to IPR ownership in the project has been focused on securing the exploitation of the ChemXchange system by agreements within the partnership and for construction SMEs and other users of the system. We have not discovered any competitive patents due to the fact that web-based information systems seldom are patented. These systems often depended on third party software and the source code is often upgraded. The ChemXchange software is the main foreground produced in the ChemXchange project. The RTD performer Interconsult Bulgaria (ICB) has been the leading beneficiary in all tasks regarding the system development and software coding, but has no IPR in the developed foreground. The source code has been hosted on servers controlled by ICB. The system operator CoBuilder and ICB will enter into a Non-disclosure Agreement post project.
The project web site was created early in the project by the RTD performer Teknologisk Institutt. They have operated the www.chemXchange.com in the project period and has transferred this web-site to the system operator CoBuilder at the end of the project. The domain www.chemxchange.com has, in the project period, been used to host the project web site. This domain will further be used to host the system beta-type when launched. The SME-AGs and coBuilder has included the right to these domains as part of the “Source code escrow agreement”. The ChemXchange logo was created by an external designer early in the project and the logo has been used actively in the project period and is closely connected to the ChemXchange software. There has been no action taken to protect the exclusive right to use the logo as a trademark. A potential registered trademark will give the exclusive right to use the mark commercially and refuse others to use this mark or marks that are confusingly similar, for commercial purposes.
Further information is provided in following deliverable reports:
• Deliverable D6.2 Report: Two papers presented at 4 conferences or major exhibitions etc.
• Deliverable D6.3 Report; Implementation strategy plan for dissemination and use in project and post project.
• Deliverable D6.4 Report: Project web site and production of support material
• Deliverable D6.5 Report: Report on potentially competitive patents and plan for application
WorkPackage 6 has been successfully completed.
WP7 – Training: Training in general best practices for chemical management, as reviewed and developed in WP1, has been the central part of the training program. Important training aspects can be the implementation of proper working procedures and actions leading to the compliance with REACH legal framework. The following elements from WP1 represent the knowledge that has been the basis for the training:
• Task 1.1 European chemical legislation
• Task 1.2 REACH influence
• Task 1.3 End user survey on obstacles
• Task 1.4 SDS Delivery format
• Task 1.5 User behavior on site
• Task 1.6 Available software tools
• Task 1.7 Existing approaches of exchange of chemical information
In addition to the results and knowledge generated in WP1, the training material has included the needed information with regards to the IT tool developed and how to get the system going such as operational principles of the system, installation and maintenance aspects. Accordingly, the central elements (modules) in the training include:
• Legislative issues especially REACH
• Safe handling of chemicals including best practices and recommended procedures.
• Use of the ChemXchange IT software
Training material has included manuals, video presentation, e-learning modules, user instructions, and the introduction of national help-desks. Training material and activities has focused on educational and simple, easy-to-implement procedures and the activities has been accomplished with use of all existing experience from the different SME-AGs. Relevant training methods include:
• Web based/interactive training
• Self studies
• Company internal training
• “Conventional” training courses provided by the SME-AGs:
Training elements has included the development of various training material including manuals, user instructions, demo videos etc and more specifically presentations/powerpoint presentations and hand-outs to participants.
Further information is provided in deliverable D7.1 Report: Training material to be used for training and for the train the trainer program. WorkPackage 7 has been successfully completed including Milestone 7 Start of the train the trainer program.
WP8 – Consortium management: The overall cooperation between partners in the project has been very good, partners have been very active and the formal meetings have been well attended. In addition, there has been a lot of more informal communication between project beneficiaries. Activity in WorkPackage 8 has included preparation of a Technology Implementation Plan exploring the opportunities for exploitation of the results of the ChemXchange project. The report describes intended exploitation by the project partners, and in particular the dissemination of the developed chemical management information system to the members of the participating SME-AGs. The scope of the plan has included all the deliverables and technologies from the ChemXchange project and describes the planned use of this research. A major part of the conducted research work from WP1has been used as input to the system specification in WP2 and will not be exploited by the stakeholder as stand-alone reports. The report includes strategies for dissemination of the research to players in the construction industry and how the consortium members can exploit the technology for their own purpose. The primary objective of this deliverable is to develop key strategies for exploitation of the research to achieve the greatest benefit for all stakeholders. The main elements of the dissemination and exploitation strategy includes the dissemination of knowledge, experience and benefits from the prototype system to SME end-users, SME-AGs, suppliers/manufacturers, expert groups e.g. The dissemination activities has begun with internal presentations disseminated by FIEC1, UNIEP and CGI-UICP to their national SME members and at conferences and major exhibitions. Post project period, we expect that our existing contacts and cooperation with the main organizations in the construction industry will speed our market penetration and increase the validity and credibility of our new device technology and its benefits by early stage evaluation.
Based on the Technology Implementation Plan, a Dissemination and Utilization plan (DUP) has been prepared as part of project activity. The overall aim of the dissemination activities has been to move the European construction sector considerably forward with regards to chemical health, environment and safety performance. The consortium participants have been carefully selected to act at a European level creating an integrated network hub to disseminate, train and exploit the knowledge and technology Europe-wide. The consortiums SME-AGs has represented an important and highly effective tool for dissemination of the results from this project into the European construction industry and represent contractors and sub-contractors all over Europe. Dissemination of project results and training within chemical management skills has been key elements to the success of this project. Extensive demonstration and dissemination has been leveraged through the SME-AGs aiming at the construction SME end-users to ensure rapid ”take up” of the system. Optimal use of the projects results have been ensured by formulating and starting the dissemination process right at the very start of the project. The early dissemination activities in the project have addressed the awareness among the contractors in Europe regarding the use of hazardous chemicals and REACH. Extensive dissemination activity has been performed by the project and described in the D8.3 Report including initial dissemination early in the project, common project dissemination activity as well as presentation of the individual partner dissemination activities. The Deliverable D8.3 Report also includes a Use plan. The Use Plan includes presentation of the business idea, the marked potential, the primary target group and new business sectors. Further, potential competition and the ChemXchange product strength has been defined. In addition, a roll out and financing plan has been prepared.
Further information is provided in following deliverable reports:
• Deliverable D8.1 Report: Technology Implementation Plan
• Deliverable D8.2 Report: Organize kick-off, mod term and final meetings
• Deliverable D8.3 Report: Dissemination and Utilization Plan (DUP)
• Deliverable D8.4 Report: All reports according to EC contract
WorkPackage 8 has been successfully completed.
The ChemXchange system is a software application complying with REACH and chemical legislation. The system has been demonstrated and the feedback from end-users testing the system has been positive indicating that the system is fit for its purpose:
a) It helps end-users to comply with legal requirements and EU regulation (REACH).
b) It makes it possible to efficiently communicate chemical information up and down the supply chain between the different actors involved in the use of dangerous substances, from manufacturer through intermediaries to end user.
c) It makes it possible to quickly identify and react to specific hazardous chemicals at the individual workplace, safeguard the workers and reduce the environmental pollution.
d) It eliminates a significant part of the management burden for construction SMEs, as many lack the knowledge, resources and systems for properly controlled chemical management.
e) It facilitates the proper handling of waste.
f) It helps performing risk management to ensure safe use and handling of chemicals by a Built-in functionality for risk assessment and substitution.
The ChemXchange system is initially targeting the construction industry - the largest industrial sector in Europe with app. 3,3 M enterprises of which 95% of the enterprises are SMEs with fewer less than 20 employees and 93% with fewer than 10 employees. The European construction industry has been strongly hit by the current financial, economic and public debt crisis. Although the situation varies from one member state to the other, overall construction investments and employment figures decreased seriously across the European Union. After the recovery of the market due to the financial crisis in 2010, the Euro countries are characterized by problems with the refinancing of government debt and a fragile banking sector and there is negative growth in several European countries. We believe this might have a negative influence on the market uptake of our system.
The ChemXchange project target groups are identified as:
• The Construction SME chemical end users
• Members of SME Associations (downstream users)
• Construction companies that handle chemicals containing hazardous substance.
• Chemical suppliers
The primary target group for the ChemXchange system is SME contractors and sub-contractors in the construction industry (carpenters, insulators, plumbers, painters, electricians, etc.) who are exposed to chemicals in their daily work. The typical customer will be a construction SME with 10-20 employees. Offering European construction SMEs access to ChemXchange will enable them to comply with existing and the new European chemical legislation, which is not the case today. SMEs will benefit economically both by lowering management costs as well as by achieving improved standard of health of the employees. SMEs with access to ChemXchange may benefit from competitive advantages, as they will:
• be able to participate as subcontractors in bigger projects complying with REACH with minimal administrative cost for chemical management
• acquire contracts without administrative time loss caused by collecting and providing chemical information for their company
• easily provide product substitutions when required by (main) contractor
• be able to work internationally more easily as they will be able to provide their SDS in the several languages
• be able to recruit workers internationally without extra costs in providing them chemical information in their native language
• offer their work to specified environmental standards i.e. they will be able to document that their work is performed with environmentally safe products complying with standards set by the contactors or environmental organisations
• be a preferred contractor / subcontractor as they can document their compliance with legislations
The chemical suppliers is another target group. They will have one point of contact to distribute relevant information to a large number of projects that use their chemical products. The chemical suppliers can distribute all relevant chemical information on substances applied in a project to the customers by the ChemXchange system. SME-AGs will play a crucial role in addressing the chemical suppliers.
Other user groups for the ChemXchange system are identified as:
• Actors involved in the construction projects.
• Consulting firms providing HES services to other organizations.
• Standardization bodies
The ChemXchange system can easily be adapted to meet requirements in other business lines in the future. The system functionality is multilingual to enable convenient expansion with new languages. New market opportunities will typically be transferring the system to other business sectors like the Automotive Industry and the Oil industry.
The automotive industry is a member of the Norwegian steering committee and all members of the leading Norwegian automotive federation have been introduced to the system. A lot of the small players are using the software for free, whereas the vast majority of the bigger enterprises in the automotive industry are hooked up in existing user-agreements in other solutions specialized in serving the automotive sector. We hope to convert several of these big players in 2013 and will invite federations in the automotive industry in new countries to be “observing” members in the national steering committee.
Another potential market opportunity is the oil industry. There is an existing solution offered to the oil industry today. There have already been informal meetings between coBuilder and this software company regarding use of ChemXchange as an industry solution in the oil sector in the UK and Norway. The International Steering committee will continue this work and will set up a new meeting in 2013.
There are several software applications available for use by the construction industry covering many areas including:
• Preparation of Safety Data Sheets
• Searching Safety Data Sheets
• Health and Safety
• Risk Assessments
• Environmental Management
We consider the following available software tools and best practices to be a future potential competitor of the ChemXchange system if they are developed to serve all aspects of the supply chain:
• Lexeus Limited (UK) www.lexeus.co.uk (Commercial): Lexeus Limited develops and supply software to support chemical hazard communication. They have two key products; Harmoneus provides advice on hazard classification and labelling of chemicals. SafeTEXT is a software tool for produces and managing chemical SDS. SafeTEXT currently writes datasheets in 22 languages.
• DGUV (Germany) www.dguv.de/bgia/en/gestis/stoffdb/index.jsp (freeware) . The GESTIS-Substance Database contains information for the safe handling of hazardous substances and other chemical substances at work, necessary protective measures etc. in case of danger (incl. First Aid). The available information relates to about 8,000 substances. Data is updated immediately after publication of new official regulations or after the issue of new scientific results.
• ECOonline (Norway) www.ecoonline.com (Commercial). The software assists in the area of health, safety and environment (HSE). Key features include: Produce and distribute SDS, Meet HSE obligations, Safety datasheets can be easily translated between several languages with the additional product ECO Language Module. ECOonline is Business partner with the DHIGroup.
• Rivo Software (UK) www.rivosoftware.com (Commercial). Safeguard, an enterprise level Health and Safety software is a modular platform, which is used globally in 82 countries and in 32 different languages. Modules include: Accident Management, Incident Management, Risk Assessment, Permits to Work, Audits, Management Reporting, Task Management, Training and Competencies, Chemical Control (REACH/COSHH), Environmental Monitoring, Contractor Management, Surveys and Assessments.
• MSDS Europe (Hungary) www.msds-europe.com/msds_preparation_translation.htm. MSDS Europe assist manufactures in the preparation of Safety Data Sheets, they do not sell software, and exclusively use their own software.
• ChemSoft (UK) www.chemsoft.co.uk/multilingual-msds-software.html (Commercial). The ChemSoft EH&S Compliance software system is a market leading software package designed to simplify the process of hazard communication.
• SAFETY SERVICES DIRECT (UK) www.safetyservicesdirect.com (Commercial). The Environmental Policy & Procedures software package has been specifically designed to assist companies to comply with their statutory duties under UK and EU Environmental Legislation. A truly comprehensive solution, the Environmental Policy & Procedures package contains over 60 pages of information, which has been written in plain English, by professionally qualified Environmental Practitioners.
We have included some American software companies that might expand into the European market:
• MSDSOnline (USA) www.msdsonline.com (Commercial). MSDSonline develops on-demand products and services to help Environment Health & Safety professionals around the globe, access, manage and deploy material safety data sheets (MSDS) and safety information. R&D Account for access to MSDS with usage restrictions. GM Account for unlimited MSDS and MSDS Management tools and regulatory reports and HQ Account which includes MSDS access, multi-site administration (site administrators at each location), multiple languages (doesn’t specify which) and facilities for printing container labels and shipping placard and Hazcom compliance.
• IHS (USA) Commercial(öffnet in neuem Fenster). IHS provide a MSDS database with features common in other, search, revisions etc. They have chemical inventory software and reports helping with submissions for REACH and SARA.
• The Wercs Ltd (USA) www.thewercs.com (Commercial). Provide REACH compliant solutions. Translation into 45+ languages. Inventory data can be used for all reporting purposes such as SARA and VOC/HAPs. Web based system designed in ASP, allows manufactures to create and post and translate SDS. Include more than 5,000 MSDS compliant phrases in 45 languages. Their management tools go beyond just MSDS management. Distribution Tools Include handheld/PDA MSDS access. Translation is handled by a Multi-Lingual Phrase Library: Immediate translation of MSDSs into country-specific language and templates. This includes a chemical library and an SDS tool.
• Imagewave (USA) www.imagewave.com (Commercial). Advanced MSDS Management software with superior imaging capability, data tracking, and report generation. Manages MSDSs acquired from multiple sources in one central database. ImageWave® - Advanced Environmental Reporter® simplifies the task of chemical tracking and environmental reporting. The software comes with a built-in hazardous constituent list of over 10,000 chemical names and CAS#'s, along with 29 associated state and federal regulation lists. Sophisticated database design supports thousands of users enterprise-wide. Supports most common databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, and MS Access.
• 3E Company (USA) www.3ecompany.com (Commercial). 3E Company is a leading provider of Health & Safety (EH&S) information and compliance. Their services span the entire chemical life cycle, covering web-based and integrated global regulatory data, SDS authoring, distribution and management, transportation, emergency response, training, regulatory reporting and waste management.
At the beginning of our project, most of these software applications were not REACH compliant, with many of the SDS solutions being designed for the American market. Today most of these software-companies provide REACH compliant solutions, however, we have not discovered any software that has the functionality to cover all aspects of the supply chain. By this we mean:
• Registration of SDS
• Redistributing of SDS
• Using SDS through contractors/subcontractors
• Filter functionality to identify the use of any chemicals of concern listed by authorities, customers or the company itself.
The unique strengths and the competitive edge of the ChemXchange system are:
• It is a tailor made system for the construction SMEs.
• It is a low-priced product and it is free of charge for the smallest actors.
• It is owned and controlled by the leading SME associations in the construction industry which will easy the work establishing the system as an industry standard in Europe.
• It is a cross national software service offering validated information complying with chemical legislation Europe wide.
The ChemXchange System has a trans-national approach due to the fact that all actors are using the same system and database regardless of which country they are operating in. System support and administrative actions will improve pan-European cooperation by the possibility to enter steering groups, user forum etc. This will ease the market roll-out and show the scalable potential for this web-application. The users will also have the possibilities to enter into joint agreements. By integrating various languages, the system also helps the users to deal with existing linguistic problems at the building site.
The consortium SME-AGs aim at safeguarding and promoting the common interests of the contractors and sub-contractors towards other institutions, organizations, the authorities and the society in general. They have ensured that the ChemXchange system has been developed in accordance with the needs of their members and they have played an important role in coordinating the dissemination and training activities. They will post project participate in both the international and the national steering committees in the various countries in Europe.
The SME-AGs expect the chemXchange system to:
• Increase the competitive power of construction SMEs by providing them with a tool to comply with rules and regulations and thereby increase their competitiveness.
• Raise the general knowledge of REACH in the construction sector through the ChemXchange dissemination activities. In addition, their member SMEs will achieve an increased general expertise regarding safe handling of chemicals, which they lack today.
• Enhance the safety precautions on the work sites, by their members actively using quality assured information readily available in the ChemXchange system.
After years of lobbying before the introduction of REACH, the SME-AGs can now support the construction industry with a tool for complying with REACH and reduce some of the financial burden this legislation put on the construction SMEs. This will also strengthen the consortium SME-AGs as the leading federations for the contractors and subcontractors in Europe and improve their reputation and attract more construction SMEs to become members of a national association.
The SME-AGs have established the international steering committee, led by Frank Baumeister, the Secretary General in GCI-UICP. He has agreed to take on this important role of coordinating the market roll-out activities. In addition, the international steering committee comprises of Frank Faraday from FIEC, Secretary General Patrizia Di Mauro from UNIEP and CEO Lars Chr. Fredenlund from coBuilder. All these representatives have been working close in the ChemXchange consortium and have extensive knowledge of the ChemXchange system, and together they will coordinate the national system providers, prepare national user- and supplier agreements and establish national steering committees.
By introducing an international steering committee, we have a structure for organizing the roll-out in Europe. The first meeting of this board was held 14th January 2013. It is suggested quarterly meetings and the next meeting is to be hosted by UNIEP in Brussels on 24th April.
The international steering Committee has decided to introduce the ChemXchange system progressively and the roll-out plan is organized in 4 steps. The system is launched in January 2013 in the UK, Sweden and Finland. These countries have been selected due to the strong interest from both national associations and leading national players. In these countries we have established relationship with potential system operators and we have been visiting several end-users. In Norway we need to move all the content from the feasibility study BASS to the ChemXchange system and the launch will be in March/April 2013.
The introduction phase in a new country is estimated to be 3 months and all the rollout-steps in our plan have 12 months duration. Step 1 starts in January 2013 (two month post project period). Step 2 begins in January 2014, Step 3 will be performed in 2015 and Step 4 in 2016.
In each new market we start the market penetration process by establishing a national steering committee with members from the building associations recruited by FIEC, UNIEP and CGI-UICP and members representing end-users. The end-users must have a leading position in their home market and have the ability to recruit several sub-contractors by demanding safety data sheets delivered by ChemXchange. The national steering committee will be led by a representative from the national SME-AG, preferably the same person responsible for contact with their own international SME-AG. The national system operator will be represented in each steering committee as a secretary, securing that decisions made by the steering committee is carried out. In Norway there is already a national steering committee and the meeting for setting up the steering committee in Finland is scheduled to the 27th of February. There will be meetings in both UK and Sweden in the period January-March 2013.
CoBuilder has been trusted the role as international system operator. This Norwegian IT-company is operator of the feasibility study (BASS) and has more than 15 years of experience in operating sector driven information systems for the construction industry. For the ChemXchange roll-out, the company has strengthen its board with the top management from Opera Software, the company behind one of the leading web-browsers with strong experience in successful software rollout and web partnering. CoBuilder is prepared to invest in the ChemXchange system in the post project period and this duty is described in detail in the Consortium Agreement between the consortium participants.
As system operator coBuilder is responsible for communication with suppliers of information to the SYSTEM (SDS) and updates to the information recorded. A standard selection of the most used building materials with a compulsory SDS have been registered by two data entry team; one located in Norway and one new data entry department in Bulgaria during the last 6 months. This work is partly done by using a web-crawler specially developed to track documents on the supplier’s web-sites. The system operator is also responsible for defining national filters to comply with national ban-lists and market requirements in each country. The data entry teams have completed the registration work with both SDS and the filter functionality for all step 1 countries and they are preparing step 2 countries for the launch of step 2 countries in 2014.
coBuilder has staffed up the data entry team considerably in 2012. At the moment there are 8 people working full-time with data entering and we are budgeting with 2 employees per country in the data entry team from 2014. Another important task performed by CoBuilder is the QA coordination of the safety data sheets. This work is being executed in cooperation with an independent third party.
The interest for enter into a national distribution agreement has been very good. The national system operators expect to increase their revenues by consultant work arising from the work with ChemXchange in addition to a fair profit for operating the system. At the moment the international steering committee is negotiating with the company Gaia Consulting Oy (www.gaia.fi) for the role as national system operator in Finland and there are processes started for partnering in UK. In Norway and Sweden coBuilder will be the system operator. For the step 2 rollout there has been informal discussion with a leading German actor for distributing the system in Germany, and a potential partner is identified in France, Italy and Bulgaria.
In the consortium agreements the project participants agreed on a judicial framework ensuring that:
• FIEC, UNIEP and GCI-UICP will jointly own the new developed scientific and technological knowledge (foreground) including systems, industry need specifications, and training material
• All SME partners have the rights that are required for their use and dissemination of the results in their business areas.
• All SME members of the associations will have the rights to use the system (results). The cost of running the system will be financed by a fee set by the SME associations and paid by each SME.
This ensures that the project results will belong to the SME associations and their members will be able to use the system but must pay a fee for the costs of operations of the system to their association.
Agreement between the system operator and the SME-AGs will be prepared. The purpose of this agreement is to regulate rights and obligations associated with use, further development, operation and maintenance of ChemXchange (hereinafter called the SYSTEM) between the national system operator and the SME-AGs (owners of the system).
The parties` main obligations:
• On behalf of the ASSOCIATIONS, the system operator will run and further develop The SYSTEM for the actors in the construction industry. The SYSTEM must allow users to establish their own substance library and have functionality that secures rational coordination of the substance library for joint projects. The SYSTEM must allow suppliers/manufacturers to register their HSE data sheets for chemical products and make them generally available to the construction industry. The SYSTEM will be, if needed, further developed in consultation with the ASSOCIATIONS, so that it meets the users' desires and needs.
• The ASSOCIATIONS must make their expertise available, which means that the ASSOCIATIONS will also provide resource persons to the national steering group that will help specify the SYSTEM. The ASSOCIATIONS commit to active marketing of the SYSTEM towards its member companies. The marketing also entails working for representative large companies to become users of the system.
The system operator is responsible for communication with suppliers of information to the SYSTEM and updates to the information recorded. HSE data sheets and product data must be updated on an on-going basis. The system operator will deliver a service that includes necessary software and associated processes to further develop and run the SYSTEM. The system operator is entitled to choose the technical solution, including placement of the SYSTEM on the Internet. Significant changes to the system's functionality and changes with a significant budgetary impact must be approved by the national steering group. The system operator will:
a) Offer training for use of the SYSTEM.
b) Establish the necessary procedures to secure data in the SYSTEM, and operation and maintenance of the systems.
c) Establish procedures for reception checks when registering safety data sheets associated with current requirements, pursuant to the rules in public law.
d) Write an annual budget and operating accounts for the SYSTEM.
The system operator is entitled to make the SYSTEM available to other user groups than the members of the ASSOCIATIONS.
In The User-agreement between user and system operator the SME end-users “outsource” all their circumstantial work receiving, maintaining and internal distribution of SDS to the system provider of ChemXchange. This functions as a “Common Mailbox” for all chemical information, with all responsibility remaining by the manufacturer (supplier). The price for the use of the SYSTEM shall be set by a steering committee appointed by the ASSOCIATIONS and is regulated in the agreement between the ASSOCIATIONS and the system operator.
Payment by users for the use of the SYSTEM shall reflect the costs incurred in connection with the development, operation and maintenance of the SYSTEM, including a reasonable profit for the system operator. The price structure for the User shall be volume-dependent, with a low entry threshold for small businesses or projects. Additional services provided by the system operator shall be paid by the users in accordance with specified rates.
The ASSOCIATIONS hold the property rights to all information or data relating to the ASSOCATIONS’ member companies that is collected and processed in this SYSTEM.
Individual USERS hold the property rights to all information or data about their own businesses that they themselves have entered into the SYSTEM.
This agreement is valid for consecutive periods of one year, calculated from the date on which the USER signs up as a user of the construction industry’s substance database at www.chemxchange.com. The agreement will continue to run for consecutive periods unless notice to terminate is given in writing at least three months prior to expiry of the agreement period. The USER has the right to cancel the agreement during the first three months of the agreement without being obliged to submit its user license.
We have worked out an agreement for the partnership as national system operator for the ChemXchange system. The main regulations in this agreement are:
The Agreement governs the exclusive, non-transferable, royalty bearing, revocable limited license to:
(i) Market and distribute the Software, directly to Suppliers and End Users in the Territory.
(ii) Reproduce and use such reasonable number of copies of the Software as is necessary for its own internal testing and evaluation purposes;
(iii) Reproduce such reasonable number of copies of the Software as is necessary to market and demonstrate the Software to potential Suppliers and End Users in the Territory;
The national system operator (partner) shall pay to the association a fees decided by the international steering committee.
When entering a new market the main Communication goals for ChemXchange is to ensure that all target groups in the construction industry and automotive learns about the ChemXchange system. We will introduce a marketing plan for the national steering committee as a starting point for their marketing activities - to be changed if needed. The planned activities are presented chronologically.
1. Advertise the ChemXchange Kick-off seminar in the national leading construction and automotive web-sites and in all media controlled by the national member federations in the steering committee – the latter preferably free of charge.
2. Organize the national Kick off seminar in cooperation with the national member federations. A press conference will be held before the seminar start. The program for the kick off, could typically include sequences like this;
o A presentation of the national steering committee
o An ordinary day at work - a video presentation
o What happens at the construction site (numerous different obligations and regulatory requirements)
o Introduction of REACH in (country) - requirements that influence your daily business
o HES focus - more than words
o ChemXchange – Your daily business
o A story from real life - Best practise
o Why ChemXchange? The Europe-wide initiative
o Presentation of the ChemXchange system
3. Information to the market and user companies. This will be done through direct dialogue with potential users, and an invitation to the players to "kick-off" seminars at the local level.
4. Sales of the system to new users - a nationwide road show for information and sales of ChemXchange to companies in the construction and automotive. This is to be performed by the national system operator.
We believe one of the most important purchasing criteria for the small subcontractors in the introduction phase, will be the demand from larger enterprises to deliver documentation as sub-contractor to the project by in ChemXchange. From the feasibility study we know that 80 contractors out of the 100 largest in the Norwegian market are customers and they create a powerful market-pull towards the sub-contractors. We will emphasize the importance of attracting the bigger entreprises to start using ChemXchange. Twill speed up the market uptake and will be a prioritized activity in the introduction phase.
A critical element when rolling out new technology is training. The system operator will in cooperation with the national steering committee present a tailor-made training program in each country. The actual training activities will be performed by the national system operator, but all material and the program activities will be the same in each country.
The training will be performed as conventional training courses with extensive marketing by the national member federations and company internal training for bigger enterprises. We also plan to set up a web based interactive training program and to offer webinars.
Important training aspects will be the implementation of proper working procedures and actions leading to the compliance with REACH legal framework. The training material will contain the needed information with regards to the IT tool developed and how to get the system going such as operational principles of the system, installation and maintenance aspects.
Accordingly, the central elements (modules) in the training include:
• Legislative issues especially REACH
• Safe handling of chemicals including best practices and recommended procedures.
• Use of the ChemXchange IT software
Training material include manuals, video presentation, e-learning modules, user instructions, and the introduction of national help-desks. Training material and activities will focus on educational and simple, easy-to-implement procedures and the activities will be accomplished with use of all existing experience from the different SME-AGs.
Training activities in the post project period will use the training material developed during the ChemXchange project in WP 7 “Training” and the experience from the training activity performed as part of the ChemXchagen project – WP7.
We plan to establish a support center in Bulgaria handling all countries if possible. If there are linguistic problems the national system operator will have the responsibility to set up a support service in their markets. This will be located together with the data entry department. The system operator has outside the frames of the ChemXchange project invested in a help desk solution for handling support requests.
Potential Impact:
The construction industry faces great challenges regarding health and sustainability issues risks thus representing an important target group with regard to European health and environmental policies and regulations.. Construction activities consume more raw materials by weight (as much as 50%) than any other industrial sector. The construction industry is also a sector among those with the highest risk regarding dangerous substances. The sector is a major downstream user of chemicals and chemical-containing articles, and the demand for chemical products is continuously increasing. European Construction Industry Federation (FIEC) has estimated that as many as 45 000 different materials and products are in widespread use in building and civil engineering activities in Europe. The industry is also dependent on particularly high-risk substances such as isocyanates, epoxy resins, brominated flame retardants, phthalates, heavy metals and various solvents as well as EU priority substances CMR (Carcinogenic, Mutagenic and toxic for Reproduction) and PBT (Persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic in the environment). Dangerous substances can cause many different types of harm, from a single short exposure or by the long-term accumulation of substances in the body, including cancer, the ability to reproduce or cause birth defects, brain damage, harm to the nervous system, asthma, and skin problems. According to European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (OSHA), two million of construction workers suffer every year from occupationally acquired illnesses and diseases including cancer, silicosis, skin problems (occupational dermatitis), solvent syndrome and heavy metal poisoning. Chemical exposure costs the construction industry at least 98 million days and almost two million cases of illness per year. Direct costs are estimated to be nearly Euro 75 billion a year or almost Euro 200 for every member of the EU population. Despite a constantly increasing focus on chemical risk management, numerous studies show that the construction industry still faces great challenges regarding chemical management as required in European chemical legislation. Research indicates that as many as 88 % of European firms do not comply with risk prevention regulations regarding substances with known toxicological risks. A coordinated European OSHA inspection campaign confirmed this by exposing high level of non-compliance with legislation in the construction industry throughout Europe. Typical divagations relate to lack of risk assessments and to the poor implementation of preventive risk reduction measures. Insufficient awareness of risks often comes because of poor communications procedures and lack of knowledge regarding regulatory requirements. This is also acknowledged by the construction sector itself, in particular, the construction trade organisation FIEC has pointed out the urgent need of proper downstream information all the way to the end user on the construction site, in numerous position papers prior to the coming into force of the new chemical legislation REACH.
Three dedicated work packages – “WP5 Demonstration of pilot system”, “WP6 Innovation related activities” and “WP7 Training”– are in charge of all dissemination and exploitation-planning activities. The overall aim of the dissemination activities has been to move the European construction sector considerably forward with regards to chemical health, environment and safety performance. The consortium participants have been carefully selected to act at a European level creating an integrated network hub to disseminate, train and exploit the knowledge and technology Europe-wide. The consortiums SME-AGs has represented an important and highly effective tool for dissemination of the results from this project into the European construction industry and represent contractors and sub-contractors all over Europe.
• FIEC representing 33 national member federations for contractors in 28 European countries.
• UNIEP representing 15 national member federations for painters in 15 different European countries.
• GCI-UICP representing 28 national member federations for plumbers in 23 different European countries.
Dissemination of project results and training within chemical management skills has been key elements to the success of this project. Extensive demonstration and dissemination has been leveraged through the SME-AGs aiming at the construction SME end-users to ensure rapid ”take up” of the system. Optimal use of the projects results have been ensured by formulating and starting the dissemination process right at the very start of the project. The early dissemination activities in the project have addressed the awareness among the contractors in Europe regarding the use of hazardous chemicals and REACH.
Launched in January 2013, by the end of its 3-year duration the ChemXchange project has resulted in the creation of a chemical management system for exchanging information and managing risks of chemicals for the construction industry. The key exploitable foreground from the ChemXchange project is a web-based software application for chemical management. User-specific tools do provide:
• Risk management
• Substitution
• Risk communication
Through multi-language presentations of Safety Data Sheets (SDS) and translation mechanisms, the system has targeted a broad user group. In addition to focusing on the needs of the SME contractors and sub-contractors, the ChemXchange project has had a strong focus on establishing well-functioning, robust and cost-effective procedures for the collection of chemical information from suppliers.
Within the frames of this project the ChemXchange system has been developed and demonstrated, and the software is now ready to be commercialized as an industry solution for the construction SMEs Europe-wide.
The overall aim for the SME-AGs when it comes to the dissemination of the ChemXchange system has been to move the European construction sector considerably forward with regards to chemical health, environment and safety performance. This is made possible by delivering a chemical management system that enables proper chemical handling and chemical management including risk assessments and risk reduction measures. The SME-AGs in the consortium have played a crucial role in coordinating the project, identifying needs of their members and identifying case members willing to be involved in the testing of the system. In addition, they have played the important role of contributing to the dissemination of the project results to their members. They represent areas of the European construction industry especially exposed to chemicals in their work and they ensure the exploitation of the results within the large community of SMEs.
The main elements of the dissemination and exploitation strategy has included the dissemination of knowledge, experience and benefits from the developed system to SME end-users, expert groups, system providers and SME-AGs. This is done with use of existing SME-AG networks and the activities will begin with internal presentations disseminated by FIEC, UNIEP and CGI-UICP to their national SME members at conferences and major exhibitions. We expect that our existing contacts and cooperation with the main organizations in the construction industry will speed our market penetration post project period and increase the validity and credibility of our new device technology and its benefits.
Dissemination takes many forms and has been ongoing since the start of the project. For the purposes of this report, a distinction is drawn between informal dissemination activities undertaken by partners on an ad-hoc basis such as visits to clients or meetings with interested parties and more formal dissemination events carried out either by one party or indeed commonly as a project.
• Project Website. The project website was set up by TI in the initial stages of the project. The basic project website was replaced by a more professionally designed. The website includes information in different languages.
• Project Leaflets. Two leaflets have been produced, one aiming more at specialists in dangerous substances and chemical safety sheets which is a project description and a shorter, more marketing focused leaflet. Versions of the leaflet now exist in all the project languages. The project partners have received printed versions of the leaflets in addition to the electronic files for further printing. In addition, the leaflet is made available in the project web page for downloading as pdf file.
• Initial dissemination in early phase of project:
o User Survey. One of the first opportunities to disseminate the project to the construction value chain was a user needs survey that was drawn up in the first few months of the project. The questionnaire was translated into Norwegian, Italian, French, Spanish and Lithuanian as well as English.
o Company interviews. During the autumn of 2009, the project organized a number of interviews with companies on their needs with regards to information on hazardous substances. This information was then feed into the user specification that provided the basis for the ChemXchange system. Interviews were organized in all countries represented by the project (i.e. Norway, Lithuania, Italy, United Kingdom, Belgium). Furthermore, interviews were also held in France and Germany in order to increase the number of countries covered by possible future expansion of the system. More information on the interviews is contained within Deliverable 1.3 “Report on the end user survey and user behavior in work situations”.
• Common project dissemination activities:
o Promotional Event: Berlin 18th February 2010. The project organized a promotional event in Berlin during the Build-IT trade fair in February 2010 entitled “Do you Know Your Responsibilities? Innovative Solutions for Professional Chemicals Management”. This involved a series of presentations on the need for effective management of chemical substances on the construction site. External speakers included the head of the Dangerous Substances Unit of BG Bau, the German Professional Cooperative of the Construction Industry who spoke on health and safety in the context of the REACH regulation and to add the opinion of retailers Martin Nicolas, Director for Sustainable Development from a major French wholesaler of construction products. A presentation followed on the ChemXchange project including a detailed overview of the Norwegian predecessor to ChemXchange, BASS as well as a talk on the features of the software tool under Development.
o First Dissemination Workshop Milan, 12th May 2012 in ESEM Scuola Edile, Via Newton Isaac, n°1/3 20148 Milano. The project held the first formal dissemination event in May 2012 to coincide with the planned end of the testing phase and the availability of the first prototype. This event was arranged through the SME AGs and focused on promoting the developed software platform to business. Due to the ease of organizing an event through strong local associations, the event was held in Milan, northern Italy and was specifically organized by ANVIDES, UNIEP’s Italian member association. Presentations were given solely in Italian and included a general presentation of the project as well as a demonstration of the first developed prototype by Giorgio Recine of RTD sub-contractor, Labor. The event, which attracted in excess of 30 participants, also saw the first mass distribution of the Italian language version of the ChemXChange marketing leaflet.
o Launch Conference, Oslo, 10th October 2012. The last dissemination event within the project period took place in Oslo in early October 2012 and saw the official launch of the ChemXChange project in Norway. The conference saw a detailed presentation of the ChemXChange system with a video including the views of those practitioners that were involved from the outset in the development of the BASS system and how this led to a transformation of how chemicals are used on construction sites in Norway. The day-long event saw a real-time demonstration of the product inventory and of the work place function.
• Individual partner dissemination activities. As well as common activities planned as a consortium, individual partners have undertaken dissemination activities. Individual partners and dissemination activities is presented in the Deliverable D8.3 Report :”Dissemination and Utilization Plan (DUP).
List of Websites:
The project has registered the domains chemxchange.com and chemxchange.no. A project web site is established at www.ChemXchange.com in order to ensure information to the public from the project.
The front page of the project web site does present the overall project description, all beneficiaries of the project and contact details. Through the presentation of the different project beneficiaries – links are made to their respective home page. The front page also includes a “Search” function and provide facilities to contact the project representatives. Further information on the project web site does include:
• Project description
• Project results
• Dissemination
English is the main language of the project and reporting is primarily done in English. However, in order to ensure sufficient information to project partners, the project has decided to include the key information in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian and Lithuanian. Accordingly, the project web page also includes a functionality with regards to information provided in this different languages.
The initial work in the ChemXchange project has focused on identification of regulatory framework, organizational needs and user behavior in order to specifically adapt the system to construction sector requirements and SME construction end user needs in particular. The activity has included questionnaires addressing suppliers and users of chemical products in order for the ChemXchange system to meets the expectations of the users. Further, identification and evaluation of relevant European and national legislation has been performed in order to identify legislation relevant for the definition of content and functionality in the ChemXchange system and to ensure that the solutions meet the specific legislative requirements. Specially, REACH regulations have been especially evaluated in order to ensure that the ChemXchange solution is fully REACH compatible.
Based on the identification of regulatory framework, organizational needs and user behavior, the detailed system specifications were defined and the software system was developed. In order to address the issues of lack of reliable information regarding chemicals in the workplace, the system specification include development of a common platform integrating all relevant chemical information primarily dominated by Safety Data Sheets. Key functionalities with regards to Safety Data Sheets include facilitating import of SDS from the chemical supplier and an interface with software solutions for preparation of Safety Data Sheets, exposure scenarios, translation of SDS information between different languages, tools for electronic chemical information exchange up and down the supply chain, multi- accessible and searchable safety data sheet (SDS) database with SDS raw data (XML-format) and tool for logging and informing on quality assurance of SDS
The ChemXchange system is a software application complying with REACH and chemical legislation. The system has been demonstrated and the feedback from end-users testing the system has been positive indicating that the system is fit for its purpose:
a) It helps end-users to comply with legal requirements and EU regulation (REACH).
b) It makes it possible to efficiently communicate chemical information up and down the supply chain between the different actors involved in the use of dangerous substances, from manufacturer through intermediaries to end user.
c) It makes it possible to quickly identify and react to specific hazardous chemicals at the individual workplace, safeguard the workers and reduce the environmental pollution.
d) It eliminates a significant part of the management burden for construction SMEs, as many lack the knowledge, resources and systems for properly controlled chemical management.
e) It facilitates the proper handling of waste.
f) It helps performing risk management to ensure safe use and handling of chemicals by a Built-in functionality for risk assessment and substitution.
The software system developed has been evaluated compered to the relevant legislation and the content and functionalities of the ChemXchange management system will strongly contribute and facilitate the obligations of the user of chemicals in the workplace. In addition, a major conclusion is that the ChemXchange system is of great assistance to enterprises whom will implement and follow quality and environmental standards including ISO 9001, ISO 14001, BS OHSAS 18001.
The ChemXchange software system has been developed in several European languages including English, German, French, Italian, Norwegian and Lithuanian. The ChemXchange system was officially launched and presented in a major event in Oslo the 10th of December 2012. Further exploitation and roll out plans for different European countries have been prepared and will be followed post project period.
Project Context and Objectives:
The objective of ChemXchange is to offer the European construction sector a tailormade, low-priced, fully digitalised system for collecting Safety Data Sheets (SDS) and information on building products. The system will ensure communication up and down the supply chain and effective chemical management, including risk assessment and substitution. The ChemXchange project addresses the challenges in the European construction and building sector and will ensure compliance with existing and new chemical legislation.
The building and construction sector is Europe’s largest industrial employer, and is a major downstream user of chemicals and products containing chemicals. Workers in this sector can be exposed to some of the most dangerous substances in commerce, including those that are harmful, toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic or harmful to reproduction. It has been estimated that chemical exposure costs the construction industry almost two million cases of illness every year and at least 98 million days of work absences. Associated direct costs are estimated to be nearly €75billion/year.
Chemical safety in the workplace represents a significant management burden for our sector and for SMEs in particular since many employers lack the necessary knowledge, resources and systems for properly controlled chemical management.
The ChemXchange system will provide a powerful tool for managing your chemicals to ensure protection of workers from health risk and prevent harmful effects to the environment. The ChemXchange system will help the building and construction sector to:
• Comply with legislation and customers requirements
• Get an overview of the chemicals you are using in your projects
• Effective communication with your chemical suppliers
• Perform risk assessment and substitute harmful chemicals with less harmful alternatives
• Identify and implement preventive measures to protect workers health and the environment
• Inform your workers correctly with reliable information
• Establish working procedures and specific instructions
• Exchange information between different projects with regards to experiences and recommended best practice
This ChemXchange project addresses the collective challenge faced by the SMEs in the construction sector of complying with today’s obligations and regulatory requirements regarding exchange of information on hazardous chemicals between various actors in the sector. The ChemXchange chemical information exchange system do fulfill the needs of the European construction sector regarding compliance with the new European chemical legislation (REACH) including challenges connected with chemical risk assessment, chemical communication and chemical management. ChemXchange offer the construction sector a tailor-made, low-priced, fully digitalized system that centralizes the collection and quality assurance of the required chemical information. The ChemXchange project has established a sector-driven chemical information exchange system that is particularly adapted to fulfill the identified SME needs. The Scientific Objectives of the project is:
• Enhanced knowledge about European and national chemical legislation, standards and policies
• Enhanced understanding of the influence of European new chemical legislation REACH on today’s and future construction sector chemical information exchange practices
• Gather knowledge about construction sector chemical end user understanding of chemical risks and behaviour towards information
• Gather knowledge about the internationalization of European construction sites and problems related to technology use, culture and language
• Gather knowledge about chemical suppliers’ information delivery practices and needs
• Gather knowledge about different construction SME end users’ needs
• Development of system framework such as user and supplier agreements, chemical procurement requirements and chemical information delivery specifications
The Technological Objectives are:
• Development of a chemical information exchange system that safeguards the specific needs of the construction SMEs, including the development of tools/modules such as:
• A common platform integrating all art of relevant chemical information primarily dominated by
• SDSs (as specified by the SME-AG members)
• Tools for electronic chemical information exchange up- and down the supply chain
• Tool for preparing and revising SDS in Norwegian, English, Lithuanian and Italian.
• Multi- accessible and searchable safety data sheet (SDS) database with SDS raw data
• (XML-format)
• Tools for risk assessment, substitution and risk management modules as well as health,
• environment and safety (HES) management system modules
• Modules for individually establishing projects/sub-projects with automatic connection to
• centralised SDS database, allowing automatic information update
• Tool for logging and informing on quality assurance of SDS
• Various automatic information routines (e.g. SDS/risk info update alert)
• Historical logging of user information (for a period of 10 yrs),
• Possibilities to compile various user statistics
• Integrated system for managing agreements, fulfilling all legal obligations
• Option to establish common and/or individual management requirements such as chemical
• procurement or management requirements
• Integration with relevant external software solutions such as HES management systems
• Development of software solution, including planning, development and testing
The work plan is structured in the following Work Packages:
• WP 1: Scientific understanding and identification of key operational parameters
• WP 2: System specification
• WP 3: Software development
• WP 4: System tests, validation and assessment
• WP 5: Demonstration of pilot system
• WP 6: Innovation related activities
• WP 7: Training
• WP 8: Consortium management
The project includes the following RTD deliverables and milestones:
• Deliverables:
• D1.2. Report on Regulatory requirements and REACH.
• D1.3. Report on end user survey and user behaviour in work situations.
• D1.4: Report on existing approaches to exchange of chemical information.
• D2.1. System v1.0 Specification.
• D.2.2. User case model & test case scenario document.
• D2.3: System v2.1 specification
• D3.1: Software v1.0
• D3.2: Module test results check list
• D3.3: Stage 1 user trials manual
• D3.4: Software v2.0
• D3.5: Software v2.1
• D4.1: Analysis of the tests on the preliminary pilot system.
• D4.2: Analysis of the tests on the second pilot system.
• D4.3: Usability test results of both versions
• D4.4: Validation of system against EU legislation
• Milestones:
• MS1 - Completion of the scientific investigation.
• MS2 - System v1.0 specification.MS 3: System v2.1 specification
• MS3 -
• MS4: Software v2.0
• MS5: Stage 1 user manual
• MS6: Software v2.0
• MS 7: Software v2.1
• MS8: Validation of tests results from v1.0
• MS9: Validation of test results from v2.0
• MS10: Start of train the trainer program
Project Results:
The initial work in the ChemXchange project has focused on identification of regulatory framework, organisational needs and user behaviour in order to specifically adapt the system to construction sector requirements and SME construction end user needs in particular. The activity has included questionnaires addressing suppliers and users of chemical products in order for the ChemXchange system to meets the expectations of the users. Further, identification and evaluation of relevant European and national legislation has been performed in order to identify legislation relevant for the definition of content and functionality in the ChemXchange system and to ensure that the solutions meet the specific legislative requirements. Specially, REACH regulations have been especially evaluated in order to ensure that the ChemXchange solution is fully REACH compatible.
Design of software management system and its functionalities specified in WorkPackage 2, has been based on the scientific findings in WP 1 on the regulatory framework, organisational needs and user behavior in order to adapt the system to construction sector requirements and SME construction end user needs in particular. Especially results from the questionnaire including suppliers and users of chemical products have been especially focused in order for the system to be developed meets the expectations of the users. Further, identification and evaluation of relevant European and national legislation has been an important element of the ChemXchange project, in order to identify legislation relevant for the definition of content and functionality in the ChemXchange system and to ensure that the solutions meet the specific legislative requirements. Specially, REACH regulations were especially evaluated in order to ensure that the ChemXchange solution is fully REACH compatible.
In order to address the issues of lack of reliable information regarding chemicals in the workplace, the ChemXchange project, the system specification include development of a common platform integrating all relevant chemical information primarily dominated by Safety Data Sheets. Key
functionalities with regards to Safety Data Sheets specified in WorkPackage 2 has included:
• Facilitating import of SDS from the chemical supplier and an interface with software solutions for preparation of Safety Data Sheets.
• Exposure scenarios
• Translation of SDS information between different languages
• Tools for electronic chemical information exchange up and down the supply chain
• Multi- accessible and searchable safety data sheet (SDS) database with SDS raw
• data (XML-format)
• Tool for logging and informing on quality assurance of SDS
The system specified in WorkPackage 2 has especially focused on the following 3 critical elements on order to achieve the main objectives:
1) Establishing company profile and hierarchy
2)Purchase of product
3)Safe Handling of chemicals, incl. safe use of products, correct waste handling and correct actions in un-normal situations/accidents
Accordingly, the following key content and functionalities have been further specified in WorkPackage 2:
• Safety Data Sheets (from the SDS database)
• Exposure scenarios (from the SDS database)
• Company profile and hierarchy (workplace structure)
• Register of chemical products used
• General workplace information and workplace waste plan
• Generate specific instructions/procedures for use of chemicals
• Risk assessment and sub-station
• Generate filters (list of prohibited and unwanted substances/products) and compare chemical register with filters
• Provide transfer of information and ensure transfer of knowledge
• Exposure and health surveillance register
• Generate reports/provide historic data and archives
ICB has processed the information with regards to v2.1 Specification into the Business Process Models. Further information is provided in deliverable D2.3 Report: “System v2.1 specification”. WorkPackage 2 have been successfully completed including Milestone 3: System v2.1 specification”.
WP3 – Software development: The main objective of WorkPackage 3has been the development of ChemXchange software system on the basis of the system requirements described and specified in previous activity in the project and especially the system specification developed in WorkPackage 2. The development was split into 3 main deliverables the first of which was meant to provide basic functionality to be used for test, trial demos and training at early stage. The two following software versions were intended to provide more advanced functionality together with enhancements on the basis of feedback from testing.
As described in DoW, project development have been spread across 14 calendar months from 32 (M32) to month 46 (M46). For better control over the process the schedule was split into sprints of duration of 1 calendar month grouped into 6 numbered iterations. Following a predefined set of prioritized functional requirements the iterations were aimed to providing a stable and testable piece of the ChemXchange system.
During the system design phase for the project, ICB followed the respective process in the adopted quality management system (QMS) ISO 9001:2008. In the process of the system design the following artifact types were prepared:
• Graphical user interface mockups
• Navigation diagrams
• Use case diagrams
• Network architecture
• Data model
• Program flow chart diagram
• Access diagram
For early evaluation of the most suitable design solutions and getting feedback from the project partners ICB adopted the prototyping approach. With each prototype there was created a proof of concept that presented the main capabilities of the final solution in technical, performance and usability perspectives. The most significant prototypes created include management safety data sheets, multilingual template system notifications, reports and generation of PDF documents.
The ChemXchange system was built as a typical 3+1 tier web application. The main system programming modules are:
• UI - User Interface Layer
• On-client User Interface Layer
• SL - Service Layer
• BL - Business Layer
• DAL - Data Access Layer
• DB - Database
During the development process ICB applied the established coding standards, design guidelines and reused proven system design incorporated in a company framework for ASP.NET web solutions. The framework intended to lead developers in the best practices for the main daily activities and provided tested stable foundation to build on.
The main goal of Software v.1.0 was the implementation of the core Workplace and Products module functionalities and preparation of system design of the Safety Datasheet module. Software v.1.0 coding is described in detail in the corresponding deliverable D3.1 Software v.1.0 report from the referenced documents list.
The validation of system modules was performed following ICB internal ISO 9001:2008 QMS process for software quality assurance. ChemXchange software test activities were scheduled according to the project development plan and described in details in the master test plan for the system. Test process deliverables were created and maintained continuously during every phase of the project development. Software test report document was continuously filled in parallel with development progress and delivered at sprint completion. The prepared artifacts documenting the test coverage and results are of the following types:
• Master test plan
• Iteration test plans - describe the testing tasks for planned iteration.
• Test matrices - matrices between functionality – test cases
• Test scenarios - Test case descriptions
• Test Reports incl. summary test report for the iteration, detailed test cases reports and bug statistic report
The main goal of Software v.2.0 was the implementation of main Workplace and Products module tools such as: Exposure Scenario, Risk Assessment, Comments and enhancement of user dashboards. The main goal in the Safety Datasheet module was SDS document entry, translate SDS document and impersonation. After Software v.2.0 it was planned that the project will be ready for dissemination and demonstration. At the end of this Software v.2.0 ICB started gathering input from the associations. Software v.2.1 was planned to contain only functional requirements with business criticality level “should” and “could”. The main focus of Software v.2.1 was to refine ChemXchange application based on feedback from dissemination and own performance test. In addition a special attention was paid to reporting, distribution of information from the system, SDS quality assurance, register of exposure employees and adding products and documents.
As part of WorkPackage 3, a test procedure has been prepared and distributed to the test panel to be followed during the testing of version 01 of the ChemXchange software system. This test procedure included screen shots and a step by step guideline to be followed during the testing. The ChemXchange software system has been developed in several European languages including English, German, French, Italian, Norwegian and Lithuanian. The testing of version 01 has included tests performed by end users in Norway, Italy, France and Lithuania and in order to support the tests in the different countries, the test procedure has been translated to the different countries included in test of ChemXchange version 01.
Further information is provided in following deliverable reports:
• Deliverable D3.1 Report: Software v1.0
• Deliverable D3.2 Report: Module test results check list
• Deliverable D3.3 Report: Stagae 1 user trials manual
• Deliverable D3.4 Report: Software v2.0
• Deliverable D3.5 Report: Software v2.1
WorkPackage 3 have been successfully completed including Milestones 4 “Software v1,0”, Milestone 5 “Stage 1 user trials manual”, Milestone 6 “Software v2.0” and Milestone 7” Software v2.1”.
WP4 - System tests, validation and assessment: The testing of the ChemXchange system has included a test of the main end user system, i.e the “Workplace& Products” as well as the SDS module. The activity in WorkPackage 4 also has included the key results from validation of the ChemXchange system with REACH. In addition, validation against “existing” EU legislation and compliance with ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and BS OHSAS 18001 has been included. This activity is not specified in the DoW, but is included based on a request from the SME-AG and SME partners in the project.
A test procedure was prepared and distributed to the test panel to be followed during the testing of version 01 of the ChemXchange main end user system, i.e the “Workplace& Products”. In order to facilitate the reporting by the end users performing the test of ChemXchange software system version 01, a test report was prepared. Further information with regards to the test procedure is included in Deliverable D3.3 Stage 1 user trials manual. Tests performed in:
• Norway: Teknologisk Institutt AS – include 2 large contractors of which Skanska AS is partner in the project (4- 6 test persons per company)
• Lithuania: Kaunas University of Technology – include one contractor
• Italy: Labor – include 3 contrators of which Lugea SpA is partner in the project
• France: Labor – include 1 contractor, 1 H&S expert and 1 craftmen association.
The results from the testing of the main end user system, i.e the “Workplace& Products” was very positive and is presented in Deliverable D4.1 Report “Analyses of the tests on the preliminary pilot system”.
Tests have been performed on the SDS module following its development stages during 2012. This testing has revealed some errors and misunderstandings as well as identified elements that can be improved for increased user friendliness and these elements has been included in the last revision of the software system. The results from the testing of the SDS module are presented in Deliverable D4.2 Report “Analyses of the tests on the second pilot system”.
The overall assessment is that the ChemXchange system comply with REAC and assist the upstream and downstream users to fulfill their obligations according to REACH by:
• Communicate uses upstream
• Compare information and advice of supplier with own conditions
• If not in compliance, communicate with supplier or notify deviance and prepare CSR
• Follow bans and restrictions
• Apply for authorisation, if necessary
• Search for alternatives for substances of very high concern or substances with high expected regulatory outcome (HERO)
• CXC system will help user execute obligations and there are many other functionalities
WorkPackage 1 in the ChemXChange projects has evaluated the different existing EU legislations relevant for the ChemXchange system to be developed. The following directives was evaluated as highly relevant with regards to the content and the functionalities of the ChemXchange system:
• EU Directive 98/24
• EU Directive 90/394
• EU Directive 97/42
• EU Directive 1999/38
• EU Directive 2003/53
With regards to the different directives, the testing and validation of the ChemXchange project conclude that the content and the functionalities of the ChemXchange management system will strongly contribute and facilitate the obligations of the user of chemicals in the workplace.
International standards with relevance to the ChemXchange project include:
• ISO 9001: Quality management systems
• ISO 14001: Environmental management systems
• BS OHSAS 18001: Occupational health and safety management systems – Requirements
These standards provide requirements for quality management, environmental and occupational health and safety management systems. ChemXchange management system for chemicals can have a significant contribution with regards to companies who will follow these standard and the ChemXchange system can be of great assistance with regards to implementation of key requirements in the specific standards.
Further information is provided in following deliverable reports:
• Deliverable D4.1 Report: Analyses of the tests on the preliminary pilot system
• Deliverable D4.2 Report: Analyses of the tests on the second pilot system
• Deliverable D4.3 Report: Usability test results of both versions
• Deliverable D4.4 Report: Validation of system against EU legislation
WorkPackage 4 has been successfully completed including Milestones 8 “Validation of test results from v1.0” and Milestone 9” Validation of test results from v2.1”.
WP5 – Demonstration of pilot system: WP5 Demonstration has focused on organized demonstration activities to allow SME end-user and information providers in the chemical industry to learn about the pilot system. The SME-AGs EBA, FIEC, UNIEP and GCI have played a central role in the demonstrations and suitable venues in the construction sector (meetings, conferences, seminars) to demonstrate the pilot system. The demonstration events have usually been arranged as a part of the dissemination events and strategy and demonstration events have also been combined with the testing of the ChemXchange management system. Demonstration events arranged during the course of the project include:
• 13/04/2012: FIEC: Demonstration of first prototype – TEC 3 Environment Sub commission
• 12/05/2012: SME-AG: Workshop Milan, Italy
• June 2012: TI several events with Skanska and Veidekke in Norway
• June 2012: EBA/coBuilder: General Assembly, Bergen, Norway
• 14-15/06/2012: UNIEP: General Assembly in Lucerne, Switzerland
• 07/09/2012: FIEC – final presentation of second prototype – TEC 3 Environment Sub commission
• 10/10/2012: EBA/coBuilder: Launch conference, Oslo
• 19/10/2012: Labor : Workshop ¡§Made Expo¡¨, Milan, Italy
• 20/10/2012: KTU: Workshops for industries, authorities, 3 events in Vilnius (18/10/2012), Kaunas (19/10/2012) and Klaipeda (20/10/2012)
• 08/11/2012: UNIEP, UK Painting and Decorating association, Manchester, UK
The demonstrations has included a short introduction to the ChemXchange project followed by a presentation of the ChemXchange management system accessing the pilot versions online available from the tests servers and then demonstrating the key content and the functionalities of the ChemXchange system.
The demonstrations of the ChemXchange system have received positive evaluations. For further information, please also see Deliverable D4.1 Report including end user evaluation and assessment from the testing of the ChemXchange system.
Further information is provided in the deliverable D5.1 Report: Report in feedback from the demonstrations regarding system improvements, user reactions etc. WorkPackage 5 is successfully completed.
WP6 – Innovation related activities: The ChemXchange project has been presented at the following external (i.e. not conferences and events arranged by the project) conferences and major exhibitions:
• Promotional Event in Berlin 18th of February 2010 during the Build IT trade fair
• Bygg reis deg – trade fare Oslo, Norway, October 2011
• Byggvaredagene, 25/03/2008, Oslo, Norway
• Bygg reis deg – trade fare, Lillestrom, Norway, 22-27. October 2012
• Trade fare Byggdagene, Oslo, Norway 18/03/2010
In addition, articles have been presented in the several publications promoting the main launch of the project in Oslo, 10th of December 2012. Further information with regards to these different events is presented in the D8.3 Dissemination and Utlilization Plan (DUP) under section 2 Dissemination.
Within the frames of this project, the ChemXchange system has been developed and demonstrated, and the software is now ready to be commercialized as an industry solution for the construction SMEs Europe-wide. The project has a trans-national approach and all system users are online the same system and database regardless of which country they are operating in. The ChemXchange will be introduced system progressively and a roll-out plan is organized in 4 roll-out steps. The degree and rate of expansion will depend on the construction SMEs acceptance. The uptake of the developed ChemXchange system will be influenced by:
• The activity in the construction sector,
• Validation of the system against national market requirements
• The license price.
An Implementation strategy plan for dissemination and use in project and post project has been prepared as part of activity in Work Package 6 and has included a roll out and financing plan for post project period 2013 to 2016, licencing and agreements, national roll-out adjustments, new marked opportunities and further cooperation between the SME-AG partners.
An external, public web site, www.chemxchange.com has been established and an internal project hotel is established in Basecamp. Only members of the consortium has had access to Basecamp. Basecamp is delivered by the American based company 37Signals. It is a project management system that focuses on communication and collaboration. The Basecamp account is password protected and includes SSL security.
The project has prepared support materials during the project period. Two leaflets/brochures has been produced. Leaflet no. provides a more comprehensive presentation of the ChemXchange project while leaflet no. 2 does especially target the members of the SME-AGs as their primary audience. Both leaflets have been produced in 7 languages incl. English, German, French, Italian, Norwegian and Lithuanian. In addition to the printed copies, high resolution files of the different leaflets has been distributed to the different partners for later printing of additional copies. A pdf file of the different brochures has also been made available for downloading from the project web site.
The activity in WorkPackage 5 has included evaluation of securing the foreground developed in the project include projects results and IPR, Management of intellectual property as well as plan to secure the source code and securing the Web domains. The Results of the Project do not include inventions that justify a patent application. The Results are of a different nature, and the project partners have not found grounds for such applications. All work related to IPR ownership in the project has been focused on securing the exploitation of the ChemXchange system by agreements within the partnership and for construction SMEs and other users of the system. We have not discovered any competitive patents due to the fact that web-based information systems seldom are patented. These systems often depended on third party software and the source code is often upgraded. The ChemXchange software is the main foreground produced in the ChemXchange project. The RTD performer Interconsult Bulgaria (ICB) has been the leading beneficiary in all tasks regarding the system development and software coding, but has no IPR in the developed foreground. The source code has been hosted on servers controlled by ICB. The system operator CoBuilder and ICB will enter into a Non-disclosure Agreement post project.
The project web site was created early in the project by the RTD performer Teknologisk Institutt. They have operated the www.chemXchange.com in the project period and has transferred this web-site to the system operator CoBuilder at the end of the project. The domain www.chemxchange.com has, in the project period, been used to host the project web site. This domain will further be used to host the system beta-type when launched. The SME-AGs and coBuilder has included the right to these domains as part of the “Source code escrow agreement”. The ChemXchange logo was created by an external designer early in the project and the logo has been used actively in the project period and is closely connected to the ChemXchange software. There has been no action taken to protect the exclusive right to use the logo as a trademark. A potential registered trademark will give the exclusive right to use the mark commercially and refuse others to use this mark or marks that are confusingly similar, for commercial purposes.
Further information is provided in following deliverable reports:
• Deliverable D6.2 Report: Two papers presented at 4 conferences or major exhibitions etc.
• Deliverable D6.3 Report; Implementation strategy plan for dissemination and use in project and post project.
• Deliverable D6.4 Report: Project web site and production of support material
• Deliverable D6.5 Report: Report on potentially competitive patents and plan for application
WorkPackage 6 has been successfully completed.
WP7 – Training: Training in general best practices for chemical management, as reviewed and developed in WP1, has been the central part of the training program. Important training aspects can be the implementation of proper working procedures and actions leading to the compliance with REACH legal framework. The following elements from WP1 represent the knowledge that has been the basis for the training:
• Task 1.1 European chemical legislation
• Task 1.2 REACH influence
• Task 1.3 End user survey on obstacles
• Task 1.4 SDS Delivery format
• Task 1.5 User behavior on site
• Task 1.6 Available software tools
• Task 1.7 Existing approaches of exchange of chemical information
In addition to the results and knowledge generated in WP1, the training material has included the needed information with regards to the IT tool developed and how to get the system going such as operational principles of the system, installation and maintenance aspects. Accordingly, the central elements (modules) in the training include:
• Legislative issues especially REACH
• Safe handling of chemicals including best practices and recommended procedures.
• Use of the ChemXchange IT software
Training material has included manuals, video presentation, e-learning modules, user instructions, and the introduction of national help-desks. Training material and activities has focused on educational and simple, easy-to-implement procedures and the activities has been accomplished with use of all existing experience from the different SME-AGs. Relevant training methods include:
• Web based/interactive training
• Self studies
• Company internal training
• “Conventional” training courses provided by the SME-AGs:
Training elements has included the development of various training material including manuals, user instructions, demo videos etc and more specifically presentations/powerpoint presentations and hand-outs to participants.
Further information is provided in deliverable D7.1 Report: Training material to be used for training and for the train the trainer program. WorkPackage 7 has been successfully completed including Milestone 7 Start of the train the trainer program.
WP8 – Consortium management: The overall cooperation between partners in the project has been very good, partners have been very active and the formal meetings have been well attended. In addition, there has been a lot of more informal communication between project beneficiaries. Activity in WorkPackage 8 has included preparation of a Technology Implementation Plan exploring the opportunities for exploitation of the results of the ChemXchange project. The report describes intended exploitation by the project partners, and in particular the dissemination of the developed chemical management information system to the members of the participating SME-AGs. The scope of the plan has included all the deliverables and technologies from the ChemXchange project and describes the planned use of this research. A major part of the conducted research work from WP1has been used as input to the system specification in WP2 and will not be exploited by the stakeholder as stand-alone reports. The report includes strategies for dissemination of the research to players in the construction industry and how the consortium members can exploit the technology for their own purpose. The primary objective of this deliverable is to develop key strategies for exploitation of the research to achieve the greatest benefit for all stakeholders. The main elements of the dissemination and exploitation strategy includes the dissemination of knowledge, experience and benefits from the prototype system to SME end-users, SME-AGs, suppliers/manufacturers, expert groups e.g. The dissemination activities has begun with internal presentations disseminated by FIEC1, UNIEP and CGI-UICP to their national SME members and at conferences and major exhibitions. Post project period, we expect that our existing contacts and cooperation with the main organizations in the construction industry will speed our market penetration and increase the validity and credibility of our new device technology and its benefits by early stage evaluation.
Based on the Technology Implementation Plan, a Dissemination and Utilization plan (DUP) has been prepared as part of project activity. The overall aim of the dissemination activities has been to move the European construction sector considerably forward with regards to chemical health, environment and safety performance. The consortium participants have been carefully selected to act at a European level creating an integrated network hub to disseminate, train and exploit the knowledge and technology Europe-wide. The consortiums SME-AGs has represented an important and highly effective tool for dissemination of the results from this project into the European construction industry and represent contractors and sub-contractors all over Europe. Dissemination of project results and training within chemical management skills has been key elements to the success of this project. Extensive demonstration and dissemination has been leveraged through the SME-AGs aiming at the construction SME end-users to ensure rapid ”take up” of the system. Optimal use of the projects results have been ensured by formulating and starting the dissemination process right at the very start of the project. The early dissemination activities in the project have addressed the awareness among the contractors in Europe regarding the use of hazardous chemicals and REACH. Extensive dissemination activity has been performed by the project and described in the D8.3 Report including initial dissemination early in the project, common project dissemination activity as well as presentation of the individual partner dissemination activities. The Deliverable D8.3 Report also includes a Use plan. The Use Plan includes presentation of the business idea, the marked potential, the primary target group and new business sectors. Further, potential competition and the ChemXchange product strength has been defined. In addition, a roll out and financing plan has been prepared.
Further information is provided in following deliverable reports:
• Deliverable D8.1 Report: Technology Implementation Plan
• Deliverable D8.2 Report: Organize kick-off, mod term and final meetings
• Deliverable D8.3 Report: Dissemination and Utilization Plan (DUP)
• Deliverable D8.4 Report: All reports according to EC contract
WorkPackage 8 has been successfully completed.
The ChemXchange system is a software application complying with REACH and chemical legislation. The system has been demonstrated and the feedback from end-users testing the system has been positive indicating that the system is fit for its purpose:
a) It helps end-users to comply with legal requirements and EU regulation (REACH).
b) It makes it possible to efficiently communicate chemical information up and down the supply chain between the different actors involved in the use of dangerous substances, from manufacturer through intermediaries to end user.
c) It makes it possible to quickly identify and react to specific hazardous chemicals at the individual workplace, safeguard the workers and reduce the environmental pollution.
d) It eliminates a significant part of the management burden for construction SMEs, as many lack the knowledge, resources and systems for properly controlled chemical management.
e) It facilitates the proper handling of waste.
f) It helps performing risk management to ensure safe use and handling of chemicals by a Built-in functionality for risk assessment and substitution.
The ChemXchange system is initially targeting the construction industry - the largest industrial sector in Europe with app. 3,3 M enterprises of which 95% of the enterprises are SMEs with fewer less than 20 employees and 93% with fewer than 10 employees. The European construction industry has been strongly hit by the current financial, economic and public debt crisis. Although the situation varies from one member state to the other, overall construction investments and employment figures decreased seriously across the European Union. After the recovery of the market due to the financial crisis in 2010, the Euro countries are characterized by problems with the refinancing of government debt and a fragile banking sector and there is negative growth in several European countries. We believe this might have a negative influence on the market uptake of our system.
The ChemXchange project target groups are identified as:
• The Construction SME chemical end users
• Members of SME Associations (downstream users)
• Construction companies that handle chemicals containing hazardous substance.
• Chemical suppliers
The primary target group for the ChemXchange system is SME contractors and sub-contractors in the construction industry (carpenters, insulators, plumbers, painters, electricians, etc.) who are exposed to chemicals in their daily work. The typical customer will be a construction SME with 10-20 employees. Offering European construction SMEs access to ChemXchange will enable them to comply with existing and the new European chemical legislation, which is not the case today. SMEs will benefit economically both by lowering management costs as well as by achieving improved standard of health of the employees. SMEs with access to ChemXchange may benefit from competitive advantages, as they will:
• be able to participate as subcontractors in bigger projects complying with REACH with minimal administrative cost for chemical management
• acquire contracts without administrative time loss caused by collecting and providing chemical information for their company
• easily provide product substitutions when required by (main) contractor
• be able to work internationally more easily as they will be able to provide their SDS in the several languages
• be able to recruit workers internationally without extra costs in providing them chemical information in their native language
• offer their work to specified environmental standards i.e. they will be able to document that their work is performed with environmentally safe products complying with standards set by the contactors or environmental organisations
• be a preferred contractor / subcontractor as they can document their compliance with legislations
The chemical suppliers is another target group. They will have one point of contact to distribute relevant information to a large number of projects that use their chemical products. The chemical suppliers can distribute all relevant chemical information on substances applied in a project to the customers by the ChemXchange system. SME-AGs will play a crucial role in addressing the chemical suppliers.
Other user groups for the ChemXchange system are identified as:
• Actors involved in the construction projects.
• Consulting firms providing HES services to other organizations.
• Standardization bodies
The ChemXchange system can easily be adapted to meet requirements in other business lines in the future. The system functionality is multilingual to enable convenient expansion with new languages. New market opportunities will typically be transferring the system to other business sectors like the Automotive Industry and the Oil industry.
The automotive industry is a member of the Norwegian steering committee and all members of the leading Norwegian automotive federation have been introduced to the system. A lot of the small players are using the software for free, whereas the vast majority of the bigger enterprises in the automotive industry are hooked up in existing user-agreements in other solutions specialized in serving the automotive sector. We hope to convert several of these big players in 2013 and will invite federations in the automotive industry in new countries to be “observing” members in the national steering committee.
Another potential market opportunity is the oil industry. There is an existing solution offered to the oil industry today. There have already been informal meetings between coBuilder and this software company regarding use of ChemXchange as an industry solution in the oil sector in the UK and Norway. The International Steering committee will continue this work and will set up a new meeting in 2013.
There are several software applications available for use by the construction industry covering many areas including:
• Preparation of Safety Data Sheets
• Searching Safety Data Sheets
• Health and Safety
• Risk Assessments
• Environmental Management
We consider the following available software tools and best practices to be a future potential competitor of the ChemXchange system if they are developed to serve all aspects of the supply chain:
• Lexeus Limited (UK) www.lexeus.co.uk (Commercial): Lexeus Limited develops and supply software to support chemical hazard communication. They have two key products; Harmoneus provides advice on hazard classification and labelling of chemicals. SafeTEXT is a software tool for produces and managing chemical SDS. SafeTEXT currently writes datasheets in 22 languages.
• DGUV (Germany) www.dguv.de/bgia/en/gestis/stoffdb/index.jsp (freeware) . The GESTIS-Substance Database contains information for the safe handling of hazardous substances and other chemical substances at work, necessary protective measures etc. in case of danger (incl. First Aid). The available information relates to about 8,000 substances. Data is updated immediately after publication of new official regulations or after the issue of new scientific results.
• ECOonline (Norway) www.ecoonline.com (Commercial). The software assists in the area of health, safety and environment (HSE). Key features include: Produce and distribute SDS, Meet HSE obligations, Safety datasheets can be easily translated between several languages with the additional product ECO Language Module. ECOonline is Business partner with the DHIGroup.
• Rivo Software (UK) www.rivosoftware.com (Commercial). Safeguard, an enterprise level Health and Safety software is a modular platform, which is used globally in 82 countries and in 32 different languages. Modules include: Accident Management, Incident Management, Risk Assessment, Permits to Work, Audits, Management Reporting, Task Management, Training and Competencies, Chemical Control (REACH/COSHH), Environmental Monitoring, Contractor Management, Surveys and Assessments.
• MSDS Europe (Hungary) www.msds-europe.com/msds_preparation_translation.htm. MSDS Europe assist manufactures in the preparation of Safety Data Sheets, they do not sell software, and exclusively use their own software.
• ChemSoft (UK) www.chemsoft.co.uk/multilingual-msds-software.html (Commercial). The ChemSoft EH&S Compliance software system is a market leading software package designed to simplify the process of hazard communication.
• SAFETY SERVICES DIRECT (UK) www.safetyservicesdirect.com (Commercial). The Environmental Policy & Procedures software package has been specifically designed to assist companies to comply with their statutory duties under UK and EU Environmental Legislation. A truly comprehensive solution, the Environmental Policy & Procedures package contains over 60 pages of information, which has been written in plain English, by professionally qualified Environmental Practitioners.
We have included some American software companies that might expand into the European market:
• MSDSOnline (USA) www.msdsonline.com (Commercial). MSDSonline develops on-demand products and services to help Environment Health & Safety professionals around the globe, access, manage and deploy material safety data sheets (MSDS) and safety information. R&D Account for access to MSDS with usage restrictions. GM Account for unlimited MSDS and MSDS Management tools and regulatory reports and HQ Account which includes MSDS access, multi-site administration (site administrators at each location), multiple languages (doesn’t specify which) and facilities for printing container labels and shipping placard and Hazcom compliance.
• IHS (USA) Commercial(öffnet in neuem Fenster). IHS provide a MSDS database with features common in other, search, revisions etc. They have chemical inventory software and reports helping with submissions for REACH and SARA.
• The Wercs Ltd (USA) www.thewercs.com (Commercial). Provide REACH compliant solutions. Translation into 45+ languages. Inventory data can be used for all reporting purposes such as SARA and VOC/HAPs. Web based system designed in ASP, allows manufactures to create and post and translate SDS. Include more than 5,000 MSDS compliant phrases in 45 languages. Their management tools go beyond just MSDS management. Distribution Tools Include handheld/PDA MSDS access. Translation is handled by a Multi-Lingual Phrase Library: Immediate translation of MSDSs into country-specific language and templates. This includes a chemical library and an SDS tool.
• Imagewave (USA) www.imagewave.com (Commercial). Advanced MSDS Management software with superior imaging capability, data tracking, and report generation. Manages MSDSs acquired from multiple sources in one central database. ImageWave® - Advanced Environmental Reporter® simplifies the task of chemical tracking and environmental reporting. The software comes with a built-in hazardous constituent list of over 10,000 chemical names and CAS#'s, along with 29 associated state and federal regulation lists. Sophisticated database design supports thousands of users enterprise-wide. Supports most common databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, and MS Access.
• 3E Company (USA) www.3ecompany.com (Commercial). 3E Company is a leading provider of Health & Safety (EH&S) information and compliance. Their services span the entire chemical life cycle, covering web-based and integrated global regulatory data, SDS authoring, distribution and management, transportation, emergency response, training, regulatory reporting and waste management.
At the beginning of our project, most of these software applications were not REACH compliant, with many of the SDS solutions being designed for the American market. Today most of these software-companies provide REACH compliant solutions, however, we have not discovered any software that has the functionality to cover all aspects of the supply chain. By this we mean:
• Registration of SDS
• Redistributing of SDS
• Using SDS through contractors/subcontractors
• Filter functionality to identify the use of any chemicals of concern listed by authorities, customers or the company itself.
The unique strengths and the competitive edge of the ChemXchange system are:
• It is a tailor made system for the construction SMEs.
• It is a low-priced product and it is free of charge for the smallest actors.
• It is owned and controlled by the leading SME associations in the construction industry which will easy the work establishing the system as an industry standard in Europe.
• It is a cross national software service offering validated information complying with chemical legislation Europe wide.
The ChemXchange System has a trans-national approach due to the fact that all actors are using the same system and database regardless of which country they are operating in. System support and administrative actions will improve pan-European cooperation by the possibility to enter steering groups, user forum etc. This will ease the market roll-out and show the scalable potential for this web-application. The users will also have the possibilities to enter into joint agreements. By integrating various languages, the system also helps the users to deal with existing linguistic problems at the building site.
The consortium SME-AGs aim at safeguarding and promoting the common interests of the contractors and sub-contractors towards other institutions, organizations, the authorities and the society in general. They have ensured that the ChemXchange system has been developed in accordance with the needs of their members and they have played an important role in coordinating the dissemination and training activities. They will post project participate in both the international and the national steering committees in the various countries in Europe.
The SME-AGs expect the chemXchange system to:
• Increase the competitive power of construction SMEs by providing them with a tool to comply with rules and regulations and thereby increase their competitiveness.
• Raise the general knowledge of REACH in the construction sector through the ChemXchange dissemination activities. In addition, their member SMEs will achieve an increased general expertise regarding safe handling of chemicals, which they lack today.
• Enhance the safety precautions on the work sites, by their members actively using quality assured information readily available in the ChemXchange system.
After years of lobbying before the introduction of REACH, the SME-AGs can now support the construction industry with a tool for complying with REACH and reduce some of the financial burden this legislation put on the construction SMEs. This will also strengthen the consortium SME-AGs as the leading federations for the contractors and subcontractors in Europe and improve their reputation and attract more construction SMEs to become members of a national association.
The SME-AGs have established the international steering committee, led by Frank Baumeister, the Secretary General in GCI-UICP. He has agreed to take on this important role of coordinating the market roll-out activities. In addition, the international steering committee comprises of Frank Faraday from FIEC, Secretary General Patrizia Di Mauro from UNIEP and CEO Lars Chr. Fredenlund from coBuilder. All these representatives have been working close in the ChemXchange consortium and have extensive knowledge of the ChemXchange system, and together they will coordinate the national system providers, prepare national user- and supplier agreements and establish national steering committees.
By introducing an international steering committee, we have a structure for organizing the roll-out in Europe. The first meeting of this board was held 14th January 2013. It is suggested quarterly meetings and the next meeting is to be hosted by UNIEP in Brussels on 24th April.
The international steering Committee has decided to introduce the ChemXchange system progressively and the roll-out plan is organized in 4 steps. The system is launched in January 2013 in the UK, Sweden and Finland. These countries have been selected due to the strong interest from both national associations and leading national players. In these countries we have established relationship with potential system operators and we have been visiting several end-users. In Norway we need to move all the content from the feasibility study BASS to the ChemXchange system and the launch will be in March/April 2013.
The introduction phase in a new country is estimated to be 3 months and all the rollout-steps in our plan have 12 months duration. Step 1 starts in January 2013 (two month post project period). Step 2 begins in January 2014, Step 3 will be performed in 2015 and Step 4 in 2016.
In each new market we start the market penetration process by establishing a national steering committee with members from the building associations recruited by FIEC, UNIEP and CGI-UICP and members representing end-users. The end-users must have a leading position in their home market and have the ability to recruit several sub-contractors by demanding safety data sheets delivered by ChemXchange. The national steering committee will be led by a representative from the national SME-AG, preferably the same person responsible for contact with their own international SME-AG. The national system operator will be represented in each steering committee as a secretary, securing that decisions made by the steering committee is carried out. In Norway there is already a national steering committee and the meeting for setting up the steering committee in Finland is scheduled to the 27th of February. There will be meetings in both UK and Sweden in the period January-March 2013.
CoBuilder has been trusted the role as international system operator. This Norwegian IT-company is operator of the feasibility study (BASS) and has more than 15 years of experience in operating sector driven information systems for the construction industry. For the ChemXchange roll-out, the company has strengthen its board with the top management from Opera Software, the company behind one of the leading web-browsers with strong experience in successful software rollout and web partnering. CoBuilder is prepared to invest in the ChemXchange system in the post project period and this duty is described in detail in the Consortium Agreement between the consortium participants.
As system operator coBuilder is responsible for communication with suppliers of information to the SYSTEM (SDS) and updates to the information recorded. A standard selection of the most used building materials with a compulsory SDS have been registered by two data entry team; one located in Norway and one new data entry department in Bulgaria during the last 6 months. This work is partly done by using a web-crawler specially developed to track documents on the supplier’s web-sites. The system operator is also responsible for defining national filters to comply with national ban-lists and market requirements in each country. The data entry teams have completed the registration work with both SDS and the filter functionality for all step 1 countries and they are preparing step 2 countries for the launch of step 2 countries in 2014.
coBuilder has staffed up the data entry team considerably in 2012. At the moment there are 8 people working full-time with data entering and we are budgeting with 2 employees per country in the data entry team from 2014. Another important task performed by CoBuilder is the QA coordination of the safety data sheets. This work is being executed in cooperation with an independent third party.
The interest for enter into a national distribution agreement has been very good. The national system operators expect to increase their revenues by consultant work arising from the work with ChemXchange in addition to a fair profit for operating the system. At the moment the international steering committee is negotiating with the company Gaia Consulting Oy (www.gaia.fi) for the role as national system operator in Finland and there are processes started for partnering in UK. In Norway and Sweden coBuilder will be the system operator. For the step 2 rollout there has been informal discussion with a leading German actor for distributing the system in Germany, and a potential partner is identified in France, Italy and Bulgaria.
In the consortium agreements the project participants agreed on a judicial framework ensuring that:
• FIEC, UNIEP and GCI-UICP will jointly own the new developed scientific and technological knowledge (foreground) including systems, industry need specifications, and training material
• All SME partners have the rights that are required for their use and dissemination of the results in their business areas.
• All SME members of the associations will have the rights to use the system (results). The cost of running the system will be financed by a fee set by the SME associations and paid by each SME.
This ensures that the project results will belong to the SME associations and their members will be able to use the system but must pay a fee for the costs of operations of the system to their association.
Agreement between the system operator and the SME-AGs will be prepared. The purpose of this agreement is to regulate rights and obligations associated with use, further development, operation and maintenance of ChemXchange (hereinafter called the SYSTEM) between the national system operator and the SME-AGs (owners of the system).
The parties` main obligations:
• On behalf of the ASSOCIATIONS, the system operator will run and further develop The SYSTEM for the actors in the construction industry. The SYSTEM must allow users to establish their own substance library and have functionality that secures rational coordination of the substance library for joint projects. The SYSTEM must allow suppliers/manufacturers to register their HSE data sheets for chemical products and make them generally available to the construction industry. The SYSTEM will be, if needed, further developed in consultation with the ASSOCIATIONS, so that it meets the users' desires and needs.
• The ASSOCIATIONS must make their expertise available, which means that the ASSOCIATIONS will also provide resource persons to the national steering group that will help specify the SYSTEM. The ASSOCIATIONS commit to active marketing of the SYSTEM towards its member companies. The marketing also entails working for representative large companies to become users of the system.
The system operator is responsible for communication with suppliers of information to the SYSTEM and updates to the information recorded. HSE data sheets and product data must be updated on an on-going basis. The system operator will deliver a service that includes necessary software and associated processes to further develop and run the SYSTEM. The system operator is entitled to choose the technical solution, including placement of the SYSTEM on the Internet. Significant changes to the system's functionality and changes with a significant budgetary impact must be approved by the national steering group. The system operator will:
a) Offer training for use of the SYSTEM.
b) Establish the necessary procedures to secure data in the SYSTEM, and operation and maintenance of the systems.
c) Establish procedures for reception checks when registering safety data sheets associated with current requirements, pursuant to the rules in public law.
d) Write an annual budget and operating accounts for the SYSTEM.
The system operator is entitled to make the SYSTEM available to other user groups than the members of the ASSOCIATIONS.
In The User-agreement between user and system operator the SME end-users “outsource” all their circumstantial work receiving, maintaining and internal distribution of SDS to the system provider of ChemXchange. This functions as a “Common Mailbox” for all chemical information, with all responsibility remaining by the manufacturer (supplier). The price for the use of the SYSTEM shall be set by a steering committee appointed by the ASSOCIATIONS and is regulated in the agreement between the ASSOCIATIONS and the system operator.
Payment by users for the use of the SYSTEM shall reflect the costs incurred in connection with the development, operation and maintenance of the SYSTEM, including a reasonable profit for the system operator. The price structure for the User shall be volume-dependent, with a low entry threshold for small businesses or projects. Additional services provided by the system operator shall be paid by the users in accordance with specified rates.
The ASSOCIATIONS hold the property rights to all information or data relating to the ASSOCATIONS’ member companies that is collected and processed in this SYSTEM.
Individual USERS hold the property rights to all information or data about their own businesses that they themselves have entered into the SYSTEM.
This agreement is valid for consecutive periods of one year, calculated from the date on which the USER signs up as a user of the construction industry’s substance database at www.chemxchange.com. The agreement will continue to run for consecutive periods unless notice to terminate is given in writing at least three months prior to expiry of the agreement period. The USER has the right to cancel the agreement during the first three months of the agreement without being obliged to submit its user license.
We have worked out an agreement for the partnership as national system operator for the ChemXchange system. The main regulations in this agreement are:
The Agreement governs the exclusive, non-transferable, royalty bearing, revocable limited license to:
(i) Market and distribute the Software, directly to Suppliers and End Users in the Territory.
(ii) Reproduce and use such reasonable number of copies of the Software as is necessary for its own internal testing and evaluation purposes;
(iii) Reproduce such reasonable number of copies of the Software as is necessary to market and demonstrate the Software to potential Suppliers and End Users in the Territory;
The national system operator (partner) shall pay to the association a fees decided by the international steering committee.
When entering a new market the main Communication goals for ChemXchange is to ensure that all target groups in the construction industry and automotive learns about the ChemXchange system. We will introduce a marketing plan for the national steering committee as a starting point for their marketing activities - to be changed if needed. The planned activities are presented chronologically.
1. Advertise the ChemXchange Kick-off seminar in the national leading construction and automotive web-sites and in all media controlled by the national member federations in the steering committee – the latter preferably free of charge.
2. Organize the national Kick off seminar in cooperation with the national member federations. A press conference will be held before the seminar start. The program for the kick off, could typically include sequences like this;
o A presentation of the national steering committee
o An ordinary day at work - a video presentation
o What happens at the construction site (numerous different obligations and regulatory requirements)
o Introduction of REACH in (country) - requirements that influence your daily business
o HES focus - more than words
o ChemXchange – Your daily business
o A story from real life - Best practise
o Why ChemXchange? The Europe-wide initiative
o Presentation of the ChemXchange system
3. Information to the market and user companies. This will be done through direct dialogue with potential users, and an invitation to the players to "kick-off" seminars at the local level.
4. Sales of the system to new users - a nationwide road show for information and sales of ChemXchange to companies in the construction and automotive. This is to be performed by the national system operator.
We believe one of the most important purchasing criteria for the small subcontractors in the introduction phase, will be the demand from larger enterprises to deliver documentation as sub-contractor to the project by in ChemXchange. From the feasibility study we know that 80 contractors out of the 100 largest in the Norwegian market are customers and they create a powerful market-pull towards the sub-contractors. We will emphasize the importance of attracting the bigger entreprises to start using ChemXchange. Twill speed up the market uptake and will be a prioritized activity in the introduction phase.
A critical element when rolling out new technology is training. The system operator will in cooperation with the national steering committee present a tailor-made training program in each country. The actual training activities will be performed by the national system operator, but all material and the program activities will be the same in each country.
The training will be performed as conventional training courses with extensive marketing by the national member federations and company internal training for bigger enterprises. We also plan to set up a web based interactive training program and to offer webinars.
Important training aspects will be the implementation of proper working procedures and actions leading to the compliance with REACH legal framework. The training material will contain the needed information with regards to the IT tool developed and how to get the system going such as operational principles of the system, installation and maintenance aspects.
Accordingly, the central elements (modules) in the training include:
• Legislative issues especially REACH
• Safe handling of chemicals including best practices and recommended procedures.
• Use of the ChemXchange IT software
Training material include manuals, video presentation, e-learning modules, user instructions, and the introduction of national help-desks. Training material and activities will focus on educational and simple, easy-to-implement procedures and the activities will be accomplished with use of all existing experience from the different SME-AGs.
Training activities in the post project period will use the training material developed during the ChemXchange project in WP 7 “Training” and the experience from the training activity performed as part of the ChemXchagen project – WP7.
We plan to establish a support center in Bulgaria handling all countries if possible. If there are linguistic problems the national system operator will have the responsibility to set up a support service in their markets. This will be located together with the data entry department. The system operator has outside the frames of the ChemXchange project invested in a help desk solution for handling support requests.
Potential Impact:
The construction industry faces great challenges regarding health and sustainability issues risks thus representing an important target group with regard to European health and environmental policies and regulations.. Construction activities consume more raw materials by weight (as much as 50%) than any other industrial sector. The construction industry is also a sector among those with the highest risk regarding dangerous substances. The sector is a major downstream user of chemicals and chemical-containing articles, and the demand for chemical products is continuously increasing. European Construction Industry Federation (FIEC) has estimated that as many as 45 000 different materials and products are in widespread use in building and civil engineering activities in Europe. The industry is also dependent on particularly high-risk substances such as isocyanates, epoxy resins, brominated flame retardants, phthalates, heavy metals and various solvents as well as EU priority substances CMR (Carcinogenic, Mutagenic and toxic for Reproduction) and PBT (Persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic in the environment). Dangerous substances can cause many different types of harm, from a single short exposure or by the long-term accumulation of substances in the body, including cancer, the ability to reproduce or cause birth defects, brain damage, harm to the nervous system, asthma, and skin problems. According to European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (OSHA), two million of construction workers suffer every year from occupationally acquired illnesses and diseases including cancer, silicosis, skin problems (occupational dermatitis), solvent syndrome and heavy metal poisoning. Chemical exposure costs the construction industry at least 98 million days and almost two million cases of illness per year. Direct costs are estimated to be nearly Euro 75 billion a year or almost Euro 200 for every member of the EU population. Despite a constantly increasing focus on chemical risk management, numerous studies show that the construction industry still faces great challenges regarding chemical management as required in European chemical legislation. Research indicates that as many as 88 % of European firms do not comply with risk prevention regulations regarding substances with known toxicological risks. A coordinated European OSHA inspection campaign confirmed this by exposing high level of non-compliance with legislation in the construction industry throughout Europe. Typical divagations relate to lack of risk assessments and to the poor implementation of preventive risk reduction measures. Insufficient awareness of risks often comes because of poor communications procedures and lack of knowledge regarding regulatory requirements. This is also acknowledged by the construction sector itself, in particular, the construction trade organisation FIEC has pointed out the urgent need of proper downstream information all the way to the end user on the construction site, in numerous position papers prior to the coming into force of the new chemical legislation REACH.
Three dedicated work packages – “WP5 Demonstration of pilot system”, “WP6 Innovation related activities” and “WP7 Training”– are in charge of all dissemination and exploitation-planning activities. The overall aim of the dissemination activities has been to move the European construction sector considerably forward with regards to chemical health, environment and safety performance. The consortium participants have been carefully selected to act at a European level creating an integrated network hub to disseminate, train and exploit the knowledge and technology Europe-wide. The consortiums SME-AGs has represented an important and highly effective tool for dissemination of the results from this project into the European construction industry and represent contractors and sub-contractors all over Europe.
• FIEC representing 33 national member federations for contractors in 28 European countries.
• UNIEP representing 15 national member federations for painters in 15 different European countries.
• GCI-UICP representing 28 national member federations for plumbers in 23 different European countries.
Dissemination of project results and training within chemical management skills has been key elements to the success of this project. Extensive demonstration and dissemination has been leveraged through the SME-AGs aiming at the construction SME end-users to ensure rapid ”take up” of the system. Optimal use of the projects results have been ensured by formulating and starting the dissemination process right at the very start of the project. The early dissemination activities in the project have addressed the awareness among the contractors in Europe regarding the use of hazardous chemicals and REACH.
Launched in January 2013, by the end of its 3-year duration the ChemXchange project has resulted in the creation of a chemical management system for exchanging information and managing risks of chemicals for the construction industry. The key exploitable foreground from the ChemXchange project is a web-based software application for chemical management. User-specific tools do provide:
• Risk management
• Substitution
• Risk communication
Through multi-language presentations of Safety Data Sheets (SDS) and translation mechanisms, the system has targeted a broad user group. In addition to focusing on the needs of the SME contractors and sub-contractors, the ChemXchange project has had a strong focus on establishing well-functioning, robust and cost-effective procedures for the collection of chemical information from suppliers.
Within the frames of this project the ChemXchange system has been developed and demonstrated, and the software is now ready to be commercialized as an industry solution for the construction SMEs Europe-wide.
The overall aim for the SME-AGs when it comes to the dissemination of the ChemXchange system has been to move the European construction sector considerably forward with regards to chemical health, environment and safety performance. This is made possible by delivering a chemical management system that enables proper chemical handling and chemical management including risk assessments and risk reduction measures. The SME-AGs in the consortium have played a crucial role in coordinating the project, identifying needs of their members and identifying case members willing to be involved in the testing of the system. In addition, they have played the important role of contributing to the dissemination of the project results to their members. They represent areas of the European construction industry especially exposed to chemicals in their work and they ensure the exploitation of the results within the large community of SMEs.
The main elements of the dissemination and exploitation strategy has included the dissemination of knowledge, experience and benefits from the developed system to SME end-users, expert groups, system providers and SME-AGs. This is done with use of existing SME-AG networks and the activities will begin with internal presentations disseminated by FIEC, UNIEP and CGI-UICP to their national SME members at conferences and major exhibitions. We expect that our existing contacts and cooperation with the main organizations in the construction industry will speed our market penetration post project period and increase the validity and credibility of our new device technology and its benefits.
Dissemination takes many forms and has been ongoing since the start of the project. For the purposes of this report, a distinction is drawn between informal dissemination activities undertaken by partners on an ad-hoc basis such as visits to clients or meetings with interested parties and more formal dissemination events carried out either by one party or indeed commonly as a project.
• Project Website. The project website was set up by TI in the initial stages of the project. The basic project website was replaced by a more professionally designed. The website includes information in different languages.
• Project Leaflets. Two leaflets have been produced, one aiming more at specialists in dangerous substances and chemical safety sheets which is a project description and a shorter, more marketing focused leaflet. Versions of the leaflet now exist in all the project languages. The project partners have received printed versions of the leaflets in addition to the electronic files for further printing. In addition, the leaflet is made available in the project web page for downloading as pdf file.
• Initial dissemination in early phase of project:
o User Survey. One of the first opportunities to disseminate the project to the construction value chain was a user needs survey that was drawn up in the first few months of the project. The questionnaire was translated into Norwegian, Italian, French, Spanish and Lithuanian as well as English.
o Company interviews. During the autumn of 2009, the project organized a number of interviews with companies on their needs with regards to information on hazardous substances. This information was then feed into the user specification that provided the basis for the ChemXchange system. Interviews were organized in all countries represented by the project (i.e. Norway, Lithuania, Italy, United Kingdom, Belgium). Furthermore, interviews were also held in France and Germany in order to increase the number of countries covered by possible future expansion of the system. More information on the interviews is contained within Deliverable 1.3 “Report on the end user survey and user behavior in work situations”.
• Common project dissemination activities:
o Promotional Event: Berlin 18th February 2010. The project organized a promotional event in Berlin during the Build-IT trade fair in February 2010 entitled “Do you Know Your Responsibilities? Innovative Solutions for Professional Chemicals Management”. This involved a series of presentations on the need for effective management of chemical substances on the construction site. External speakers included the head of the Dangerous Substances Unit of BG Bau, the German Professional Cooperative of the Construction Industry who spoke on health and safety in the context of the REACH regulation and to add the opinion of retailers Martin Nicolas, Director for Sustainable Development from a major French wholesaler of construction products. A presentation followed on the ChemXchange project including a detailed overview of the Norwegian predecessor to ChemXchange, BASS as well as a talk on the features of the software tool under Development.
o First Dissemination Workshop Milan, 12th May 2012 in ESEM Scuola Edile, Via Newton Isaac, n°1/3 20148 Milano. The project held the first formal dissemination event in May 2012 to coincide with the planned end of the testing phase and the availability of the first prototype. This event was arranged through the SME AGs and focused on promoting the developed software platform to business. Due to the ease of organizing an event through strong local associations, the event was held in Milan, northern Italy and was specifically organized by ANVIDES, UNIEP’s Italian member association. Presentations were given solely in Italian and included a general presentation of the project as well as a demonstration of the first developed prototype by Giorgio Recine of RTD sub-contractor, Labor. The event, which attracted in excess of 30 participants, also saw the first mass distribution of the Italian language version of the ChemXChange marketing leaflet.
o Launch Conference, Oslo, 10th October 2012. The last dissemination event within the project period took place in Oslo in early October 2012 and saw the official launch of the ChemXChange project in Norway. The conference saw a detailed presentation of the ChemXChange system with a video including the views of those practitioners that were involved from the outset in the development of the BASS system and how this led to a transformation of how chemicals are used on construction sites in Norway. The day-long event saw a real-time demonstration of the product inventory and of the work place function.
• Individual partner dissemination activities. As well as common activities planned as a consortium, individual partners have undertaken dissemination activities. Individual partners and dissemination activities is presented in the Deliverable D8.3 Report :”Dissemination and Utilization Plan (DUP).
List of Websites:
The project has registered the domains chemxchange.com and chemxchange.no. A project web site is established at www.ChemXchange.com in order to ensure information to the public from the project.
The front page of the project web site does present the overall project description, all beneficiaries of the project and contact details. Through the presentation of the different project beneficiaries – links are made to their respective home page. The front page also includes a “Search” function and provide facilities to contact the project representatives. Further information on the project web site does include:
• Project description
• Project results
• Dissemination
English is the main language of the project and reporting is primarily done in English. However, in order to ensure sufficient information to project partners, the project has decided to include the key information in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian and Lithuanian. Accordingly, the project web page also includes a functionality with regards to information provided in this different languages.
