3E Exchange empowers agricultural equipment manufacturer to streamline supplier surveys and manage compliance

Overview

A leading provider of quality agricultural brands and parts to wholesale distributors worldwide works with an extensive network of suppliers to produce their products.

Their efforts to advance their commitment to chemical safety and sustainability in partnership with their suppliers and customers proved to be a challenge with limited staff. They turned to 3E for technology tools that could help them enhance supply chain visibility and end-to-end data management, from the issuance of supplier surveys to generation of required regulatory reporting. 3E Exchange has been a game-changer, empowering individuals to manage the compliance function with greater confidence and ease.

Challenges

Like most industries, this manufacturer is subject to a growing number of regulatory standards, sustainability pressures and chemical and workplace safety regulations. With a background in the automotive industry, the company's Project Engineer knows quite a bit about polymer chemistry and many of the chemical and workplace safety regulations. With this insight, he became the point person for regulatory compliance.

Over the past year, the responsibility has surged from occupying 25% of his time to now taking 75% of his working hours, leaving him unable to address other priorities under his primary job description.

“Over the past couple of years, the number of regulations and customer inquiries has grown exponentially,” explained the Project Engineer. “A few years ago, four companies were responsible for all inquiries about materials and substances. But now, all of our customers are making inquiries. At the same time, the number of regulations with which we must comply is also growing. It's no longer just REACH and RoHS, but it's OSHA, TSCA and a host of other global regulations. Trying to handle these inquiries individually is impossible.”

Understanding that accessible supplier data is a core tenant of successful compliance, the procurement team undertook an initiative to rebuild how they stored supplier and product information. This would accomplish goals like increased supply chain visibility for greater resiliency and would offer greater transparency for the purposes of compliance and sustainability reporting. They initiated a contract with Toxnot, which was soon acquired by 3E. The 3E team helped them transition smoothly to 3E Exchange, a supply chain visibility and sustainability platform that enables streamlined data collection from suppliers and strategic alignment of data received with compliance and sustainability objectives.

After completing setup and training, the Project Engineer can now leverage 3E Exchange to issue supplier surveys in a matter of minutes rather than days.

“3E Exchange enables me to issue surveys to all my suppliers in a matter of minutes. The templates have everything to allow me to pick-and-choose the information I want to gather with a few mouse clicks. Once data is received, it's automatically flagged for attention if certain regulations apply so that we can prioritize those issues. This workflow would be impossible for me to complete on my own without the 3E platform.”

Achieving results

Now that the system is in place, he looks forward to systematically issuing surveys for material compliance, consolidating results, and easily generating reports to respond to customer inquiries. He can also generate reports required for compliance with emerging regulations like TSCA 8(a)(7).

“The ability to cross-reference all the data points and changing regulations in a single platform is a huge benefit.”

In addition to streamlining the process of issuing and collecting survey data, the Project Engineer is also excited that 3E Exchange will turn all the regulations from an increasingly obscure landscape in his mind to data points in a digital platform.

 “At the rate these regulatory updates are being introduced and expanding, it's no longer feasible to keep up with the details in your head or on paper. Fortunately, they are embedded in 3E Exchange.”

Looking ahead

3E Exchange will help this manufacturer acclimate suppliers to regular inquiries and support them in their ability to supply accurate, complete data that benefits all stakeholders across the supply chain. The Project Engineer also hopes to access a growing body of data to respond to new types of customer inquiries surrounding sustainability performance data. As sustainability reporting becomes a mainstay of corporate reporting, the company is receiving a growing number of requests from their large customers for emissions data, circularity and waste information. All of that information can be easily collected from suppliers and delivered via reports with 3E tools.

They are also using the 3E platform to prioritize identification and elimination of chemicals and plastics that are hazardous. Thanks to automation made possible with 3E Exchange, the Project Engineer hopes to turn his focus to reengineering products that meet the performance and safety requirements of today's world.

Their investment in 3E Exchange represents a major step in this manufacturer's journey to achieve significant compliance and sustainability goals.