By Mark Shwartz - Stanford University News
Remember your
high school chemistry lab with row after row of Bunsen burners
surrounded by shelves filled with all sorts of toxic chemicals?
Keeping an
inventory of these hazardous materials is a cumbersome chore that
requires chemistry teachers constantly to fill out and update
official reports to numerous regulatory agencies.
Managing a
high school chemistry lab is time-consuming enough, so imagine
the challenge facing a large research institution like Stanford,
with approximately 2,000 laboratories located in more than 100
buildings.
``We are responsible
for tracking about 200,000 individual containers of hazardous
material on campus,`` says Lawrence M. Gibbs, associate vice provost
in charge of the Department of Environmental Health and Safety
(EHS).
Gibbs` department
is required by law to report the contents of each container to
20 federal, state and local agencies - from the Environmental
Protection Agency to the Palo Alto Fire Department.
The task became
so overwhelming that, by the mid-1990s, Gibbs and his colleagues
began looking for a more efficient way to track chemical inventories.
``We just
didn`t have a good system in place,`` he recalls, ``so we tried
to find a commercial solution to managing all the chemicals on
campus via the web.``
SCIMS
According
to Gibbs, none of the commercially available programs was up to
the task, so EHS began developing its own software. The result
was the Stanford Chemical Information Management System (SCIMS)
launched in June 1999.
``It took
us two years to document the institutional requirements and develop
SCIMS,`` he notes, ``but now we have a system that`s available
in every building where hazardous chemicals are stored.``
Gibbs will
explain how SCIMS operates at the annual meeting of the American
Chemical Society (ACS) in San Diego on April 4. He is one of several
speakers invited to an ACS symposium titled ``Winning Approaches
to Chemical Safety on the Web.``
``Our old
paper and desktop system was very arduous,`` Gibbs admits. ``Our
goal with SCIMS was to provide as much local control and flexibility
as possible to researchers in the lab, because their needs change
over time.``
SCIMS allows
authorized users to update their inventory simply by typing in
the name and the amount of each chemical in their lab on a standard
form available on the Web. The data are automatically entered
into the dozen or so compliance reports that Gibbs regularly submits
to the government.
``Chemical
inventories are required throughout the campus,`` notes Gibbs,
``for common substances such as diesel fuel, gasoline, chlorine
bleach and soap, as well as more exotic chemicals, including arsine
gas for semiconductor research.``
Even the paint
used by art students requires special storage and tracking information.
Streamlined
inventory management
Thanks to
SCIMS, inventory management has become so streamlined that Gibbs
has been able to eliminate the equivalent of two full-time inventory
management positions in the Department of Environmental Health
and Safety.
``SCIMS is
fast and efficient,`` he says. ``Reports that used to take hours
or even days now can be filled out with the push of a button.``
The response
from the faculty has been very positive, adds Gibbs, noting that
many users find it easier to enter data at their own convenience.
He also maintains
that SCIMS has encouraged researchers to share chemical supplies
and has reduced the number of duplicate orders.
``Before,
if someone ran out of a certain chemical, there was no way to
tell if it was available in someone else`s lab,`` Gibbs says.
He points
out that the SCIMS software could have widespread applications
at other universities and in the private sector.
``The area
of chemical supply-chain management is getting a lot of attention
nowadays,`` observes Gibbs. ``Studies show that the cost of chemical
management by an organization can be up to 10 times higher than
the actual purchase cost of the chemical.``
Recognizing
a broader need for Web-based chemical tracking, Gibbs and his
colleagues launched a spinoff company, ChemTracker Technologies
Inc., to market the software to institutions and corporations.
Gibbs is on the board of directors of the new company.
``One way
or another, every lab has to track their chemicals,`` says Peter
A. Burnes, who recently left Gibbs` department to become ChemTracker`s
product development director.
Burnes points
out that the ChemTracker system already has been sold to four
clients, including Stanford Hospital, a major biotech company
and a large Silicon Valley semiconductor firm.
Because the
technology was developed at Stanford, the university holds the
copyright to the software and will receive equity shares in ChemTracker.
``We couldn`t
find a commercial solution, so we ended up creating our own,``
Burnes says.
Relevant Web
URLs:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/EHS
Contact:
Mark Shwartz, News Service (650) 723-9296; mshwartz@stanford.edu
Comment :
Lawrence M. Gibbs, Department of Environmental Health and Safety
(650) 723-7403; lgibbs@stanford.edu
Peter A.
Burnes, ChemTracker Technologies Inc. (650) 812-1801; burnes@chemtracker.com
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