Hazcheck Systems - Dangerous Goods Software

Hazcheck Online: CASE STUDY - Chemical Producer

This small UK based chemical company produces a range of dyes and paints most of which fall under the IMDG Code provisions. They have approximately 20 shipments a week, many of these shipments are made up of multiple hazards making a total count of DG commodities shipped in a week of approximately 140. All shipments are consigned by the DGSA.

Previous working practice

Using a typical example, eight mixed class 8 and class 3 items were loaded together and sent in the same container to a company in the US. The following checks were made by the DGSA manually using the IMDG Code:

Substance check in the IMDG Code to ensure all items were classified correctly and any special provisions checked

Check if the items could be loaded together by UN number, class and if applicable chemical family

Check that the packages are correct

Send the request by email to the shipping line

On approval by the shipping line complete the DGN

By referring to the IMDG Code manually each step took the following length of time:

15 minutes

12 minutes

15 minutes

10 minutes

Total Time Taken: 1 hour and 2 minutes

The Hazcheck Solution

By using Hazcheck Online the DG items are automatically checked against the IMDG Code for substance validation, segregation, specific segregation requirements and packaging validation. Once all items have been entered and validated a DGN can be produced automatically from the system and sent directly via email to any preset contact. In doing this the total time taken is:

Steps 1-3: 10 minutes

Steps 4-5: 5 minutes

Total Time Taken: 15 minutes
Hazcheck Cost: 1 validation unit, US$1.75

Productivity gains over a week using Hazcheck Online

By taking the average time taken per item in the manual process we get a figure of 7.75 minutes per item. Applying this average to the total number of items completed over an average week gives a total of 1085 minutes (approximately 18 hours) required to complete the required DG validation process.

By applying the same principle using Hazcheck Online we get a figure of 1.9 minutes per item and a weekly total of 262.5 minutes (4.4 hours) required to complete the DG validation process.

Overall Productivity Gain: 13.6 hours per week

Exis Technologies are systems developers of the Computerised IMDG Code for the International Maritime Organization