Digitising Technical Documentation Access and Customer Care for AECI Specialty Chemicals

AECI Specialty Chemicals, a specialist chemical manufacturing company within the JSE-listed AECI Group, required a solution to create, share and track technical information for easy access for both customers and internal stakeholders.

Due to stringent auditing and safety requirements, the company had to provide extensive paperwork with each manufactured batch of chemicals and physical documents would easily get damaged during physical handling or become difficult to track. They engaged with Auxo Digital to find the best way to ensure all documentation could be sorted, shared, tracked and protected within a centralised ecosystem.

Compliance in the Digital Era.

With each batch of manufactured products, chemical manufacturers are obliged to provide safety data, certificates of analysis,and warning labels.

This information typically comes in the form of physical paperwork, confirming that materials are up to spec, safe to use and aligned with customer expectations.

AECI Specialty Chemicals’ manufacturing team was using multiple applications to create the documentation, while the customer care team was expending considerable effort to ensure these documents were sent to customers and stakeholders within the organisation.

Paperwork was getting lost or damaged as it moved through the distribution chain from production to delivery to customer.

The core challenges faced by the company were:

Extensive printing of documentation

The paperwork was shipped separately to the chemicals and could get lost, mis-filed or damaged

Filing, managing, tracking and tracing paperwork became cumbersome and complex

A lack of codified processes around information classification, input and sharing

The Solution

Five steps to digitisation

Auxo Digital engaged AECI Specialty Chemicals through a 5-step methodology to gain a richer understanding of the environment, the challenges faced by the company, and determine the most effective way forward.

The final platform allowed for the AECI Specialty Chemicals teams to upload product and batch-specific information with accompanying technical documents, link them automatically to a unique QR code, and share the information with relevant customers and stakeholders through customised, GHS-compliant product labels, customised to fit on bottles, drums, canisters, tubs and other chemical packaging.

The result:

Intelligent Access

The result was a deftly managed digital platform, that ensured documentation, labelling and management was seamless, accessible and automated.

The value of this digitised platform was immediately felt as the company saved 42,000 sheets of paper annually. The company also reduced its paper usage related to technical document sharing by 20%.

In addition to delivering measurable savings in paper volumes, the solution has provided AECI Specialty Chemicals with additional support in remaining compliant with GHS standards and information sharing with customers.

The amount of time saved for the company on managing and sharing documentation has also been reduced by 10-15 minutes per batch across 100s of batches monthly.