90% time savings thanks to automated processing of the REACH regulation
published on
30.11.2023
🏗 Industry: Packaging solutions
🗺 Company headquarters: Bruchsal (Baden-Württemberg)
🧍 Employees: ~ 220
💶 Turnover ~ € 50 million per year
Purchasing volume ~ € 33 million per year
For over 100 years, Anton Debatin GmbH has established itself as a leading provider of safe packaging solutions. As a manufacturer of logistics and film packaging, environmental protection is a top priority at Anton Debatin. For two years, the company has voluntarily published a comprehensive sustainability report and was the first company to receive the Sustainability Champion Award. The product portfolio covers a wide range of laboratory-safe, tamper-evident and shipping-safe solutions, including mailing envelopes, document pouches and pressure-seal bags. Anton Debatin is currently in the process of developing the medical market as a new product segment.
"By using Tacto, it is possible to check with one click whether or not certain substance groups are included on a supplier and article basis. The automated REACH query via Tacto makes it possible to retrieve REACH data from all suppliers at the touch of a button and carry out detailed queries at article level." - Veronika Stricker, Team Leader Quality Management Anton Debatin
The REACH regulation relates to the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemical substances.
The REACH regulation differentiates between manufacturers, processors and importers. Anton Debatin acts as a downstream user by using its own products and placing articles on the market. Debatin's role is to obtain information, evaluate it and pass it on.
Anton Debatin's products that contain hazardous substances are subject to disclosure requirements. This disclosure must include information on how much of the hazardous substance is contained and what potential effects this may have. Suppliers are in turn required to provide information on the effects, limits and other relevant aspects.
Anton Debatin is required to continuously check whether it is possible in the future to replace the hazardous substances contained in its products. As long as a replacement is not feasible, the obligation to pass on information remains in force. This information transfer includes detailed information on the substances contained in each product, at a very detailed level, starting with individual articles and extending to the materials used, such as film, paper and adhesives.
The REACH regulation is based on a list of candidates for Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC), which currently comprises 235 substances. The SVHC list is updated on average every six months by adding new substances to the list. In the event of an extension of the SVHC list, there is an obligation to provide the end user with the updated information within 45 days of publication.
In this context, it is necessary to contact all 60 Anton Debatin suppliers individually every six months after each update of the list of substances. Each supplier received a separate e-mail with the relevant contact persons. Each of these emails had to be formulated, created and sent individually. The challenge was that contact persons change frequently and the updates were not always tracked in the system, which led to outdated master data.
The response from suppliers was not just individual replies but confirmations of receipt or other requests. The problem was exacerbated by the use of a platform not based on Outlook/Microsoft, which made it difficult to bundle these responses and assign them to the respective suppliers. This resulted in a considerable manual effort.
All email responses were summarized and tracked in an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet was elaborately created and included information on all 60 suppliers, broken down by contact person, type of supplier and product group. This approach proved to be time-consuming due to its complexity.
Due to the resulting capacity bottlenecks, Anton Debatin decided to automate the handling of the REACH regulation and other manual processes in supplier management in a tool.
Increasing process efficiency in the implementation of the REACH regulation
Automated connection of REACH information on suppliers to supplier evaluation and action management
Filtered overview at the touch of a button and data transparency for all REACH information and supplier information on other compliance requirements
Anton Debatin chose Tacto as the software solution because Tacto is specially tailored to the needs of SMEs and, in addition to the automation of REACH, automatically maps all important supplier processes.
"By using Tacto, it is possible to check at the touch of a button whether or not certain substance groups are included on a supplier and article basis. The automated REACH query via Tacto makes it possible to retrieve REACH data (SVHC substances) from all suppliers at the touch of a button and to carry out detailed queries at article level (SCIP numbers)."
Even with increasing query frequency or a growing supplier base, the Tacto tool does not cause any additional work for Anton Debatin. By using Tacto, 90% of the time is saved per REACH query and 10 working days per year are saved over the entire REACH query volume.
Additional compliance issues such as RoHs and POP as well as certificates such as ISO 9001 and sustainability certificates are also automatically requested directly from suppliers via the supplier self-disclosure system. This information is collected and evaluated once a year. Here too, Tacto saves a huge amount of time.
Another integrative step is the inclusion of REACH and other compliance as an evaluation variable in the supplier evaluation. Suppliers are automatically evaluated based on their REACH, RoHS and POP information, for example, on topics such as sustainability, development potential and innovation. This enables a comprehensive supplier evaluation and prioritization of suppliers.
Particularly against the background of the discussed tightening of the REACH regulation towards PFAS, Tacto enables the identification of PFAS suppliers and PFAS articles at the push of a button and can use the tool to initiate measures at an early stage, such as supporting the supplier in the search for alternative materials to PFAS to reduce the risk. Tacto also supports the onboarding process for new suppliers and can query and integrate initial information on REACH.
90% time savings thanks to the automation of all processes relating to the REACH Regulation
Saving 10 working days a year by automating REACH queries
Establishment of strategic supplier management with a focus on the further development of the supplier base
Anton Debatin particularly appreciates the collaboration in the form of co-innovations at Tacto.
"We are involved in many development projects and it's super exciting to see how the solution is constantly evolving. I have rarely seen or heard of a software tool working so closely with the customer and also with the customer's needs."
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Many thanks to Veronika Stricker and the entire Anton Debatin team for our partnership and trustworthy cooperation.
Thanks to partners and customers like you, it is possible to further develop our product in close exchange and close to daily events, as well as to talk in joint webinars about the topics that concern the procurement of industrial medium-sized companies today.
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