International Chemicals Supplier Reduces Time-To-Market by 90 Percent with CAs Aion
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Business Rules Automation Solution Helps Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. Protect the Environment and Ensure Safety
Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) today announced that Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE: APD), an international supplier of industrial gases and related equipment and services, and specialty and intermediate chemicals, has reduced time-to-market by 90 percent by deploying an intelligent business application built with CAs Aion business rules automation solution.
The application, ChemReg, enhances the safety of its shipping process, a critical requirement for chemical and gas companies whose products are subject to regulatory compliance during shipment. Applying hundreds of complex rules, ChemReg chooses what information should be printed on shipping documents and labels as well as on Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). This information is prescribed by various national and international regulatory agencies.
Having shipped 1.2 billion pounds of product throughout the world, Air Products has been repeatedly recognized for transportation safety. Most recently the company won three awards from major North American railroads for the safe shipment of over 7,000 product railcars.
"Air Products needed an easy way to systematically capture and leverage our employees safety expertise, but we also had to allow for quick updates and modifications of internal compliance procedures in response to regulatory changes," said Joe Ferry, manager of Regulatory Compliance Systems, Air Products. "Aions rules-based approach makes it simple to stay up-to-date because non-technical business people in the product safety and distribution departments can share product safety and shipping information in a structured and disciplined manner."
When the company creates a new product, ChemReg can also project key data points when the information is not available and, thereby, prevent delays in product introduction. For example, a technical data field is determined to be relevant but no estimated or actual technical data has been provided on the product. By analyzing a database of existing products ChemReg will project the data from actual test results on a similar product. This intelligent preprocessing capability is one of the factors that has dramatically shortened the delivery cycle for new products. The system is so effective that it now takes just three days to produce handling and shipping information. Prior to Aion, the process took 30 days.
Air Products built ChemReg with Aion because of the products ability to handle vast complexities in a dynamic regulatory environment. For example, one Air Products process involves identifying and updating all products that are impacted by new or revised regulations. This resource-intensive task is simplified considerably with the Aion rules and inference engine, alleviating demands on highly qualified employees in manual and time-consuming tasks.
"Because of Aion, the ChemReg application continually enhances the efficiency and reliability of our material safety reporting and transportation compliance processes," said Ferry. "Aion is the ideal system for deploying a real-world solution to our inherently complex and changing environment here at Air Products."
About Computer Associates
Computer Associates International, Inc. (NYSE: CA) delivers The Software That Manages eBusiness. CAs world-class solutions address all aspects of eBusiness process management, information management, and infrastructure management in six focus areas: enterprise management, security, storage, eBusiness transformation and integration, portal and knowledge management, and predictive analysis and visualization. Founded in 1976, CA serves organizations in more than 100 countries, including 99 percent of the Fortune 500 companies.
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