Chemical Inventory System - FAQ

YES, however it is expected that the system will be adopted in a rolling program through 2017.

All chemicals with the exception of simple easily available commercial cleaning products aka ‘household cleaners’.

Yes, each group will enter their chemicals and their location individually. Authorised persons will then be able to search the inventory (e.g. research group members who have been given a user account under the ChemInventory account and department/university safety officers).

Training for Department and Institution ‘system administrators’ will be made available as required, however the system is highly intuitive.

YES. You can import your data from an Excel file using ChemInventory’s Excel import tool. Most third party inventory systems allow Excel exports, if you’re already using one of these tools.

YES, it will simplify legal compliance through stocktake and auditing.

Either from a commercial supplier, or you can print your own (ChemInventory has a barcode generation tool). Advice can be sought from the Safety Office.

From a commercial supplier, numerous types are available at little cost.

The system will allow inventory data to be shared between groups or across departments. This is not compulsory, however, and the group can decide who (if anyone) they wish to share the inventory with.

There will be no compulsory sharing of chemicals, however the inventory does permit sharing at the discretion of the groups, which could save money for Departments and Institutions as well as reducing the environmental impact of chemical use.

Yes, as it is possible to have two accounts. Furthermore it is possible to have different access settings for instance to have one open and the other restricted.

No. custom fields can be easily added by your system administrator

No, but the containers size/volume and location will be required, but not a running record of use.  For example a container of "500ml Ethanol" in "Room 216" "Flammables Cabinet" could be saved in the inventory.

The user would update the inventory, removing the container record.

The inventory of a room or group can be audited by scanning in all the bar codes on the containers and missing or additional containers will be listed. This is facilitated by ChemInventory’s stocktake feature.

Whenever questions arise as to what chemicals are held and annually to ensure compliance.

Not directly, although it does have an ‘internal’ ordering facility that can be used within a Department or Institution.

It is held securely in the 'cloud' with multiple back up facilities and only accessed by individuals appointed by the University.