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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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