Transforming product labels using digital technologies to enable enhanced traceability and management of hazardous chemicals

Abstract

Manufacturer that produce, distribute or market physical products are likely to be impacted by numerous chemical and product regulations. Manufacturers must identify chemical substances which appear within mixtures, materials, formulations, raw materials, components, assemblies and finished products. This results in a very manual and resource intensive process of collection of chemical substances in products data, where definitions arise from internal, industry standards, supplier and customer requirements and often sourced from multiple supply chain actors. This paper contributes to existing literature by identifying a research gap in transforming current manual state data collection tasks via the utilisation of digital technologies, leveraging real-time data collection using smart labels to identify chemicals contained within products. The proposed design enables manufacturers to identify the use of chemicals consumed in a automated manner and enabling appropriate risks to be identified and managed accordingly. The design can be further expanded in the proposed collaborative data sharing network.