Case
Chemical organisation - Electronic submission applications and database management project
Environment
REACH is a European regulation dealing with the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances, and aimed at improving health and environmental protection through earlier identification of the intrinsic properties of chemical substances. At the heart of REACH, a powerful IT system enables information gathering of chemical substances submitted by chemical manufacturers and importers and the registration of the chemicals in a central database run by the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki. The ECHA acts as the central point to operate the system, co-ordinate the in-depth evaluation of suspicious chemicals and run a public database in which consumers and professionals can find information.
Solution
Trasys started the business analyse and user requirements phases in 2003. A first version of the system was presented in May 2008 , in presence of Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission
The system provides functional blocks grouped according to the different types of users:
The agencies that ensure the day-to-day workflow of the regulatory process (registration, evaluation, authorization, restriction, classification and labelling of substances)
The chemical industry that submits dossiers
The public that is granted consultation and download of non-confidential registration dossiers
Starting from scratch, the solution has been designed as a paperless system with extremely flexible workflow features to cater for changes and improvements in the working procedures as they will be further defined and refined. With a potential user base of over 30.000 companies and 1.000 ECHA users requiring concurrent access and usage, the system has been designed to be highly scalable on its hardware server farm, build around numerous multiprocessor machines. Querying and reporting functionalities are supported by a fast search interface, supporting thousands of concurrent users and 30 Terabyte of searchable data. Finally, a careful attention has been given for securing the complete system and communication networks to guarantee the chemical industry makes its submissions without any risk of compromising their industrial secrets, while a transparent access must allow the public and pressure groups to access certain data. The system is based on a Java Enterprise architecture with key components that include J2EE (using Enterprise Java Beans technology and J2EE Design Patterns), Hibernate, Spring, BEA Weblogic Integration as workflow engine, Java Server Faces, Ajax and JavaScript
Benefits
The system allows chemical companies to easily sign-up online, submit dossiers and other required information on chemical substances to the Agency. Once the information is submitted, it is stored in the central REACH database for easy review and treatment of dossiers, search information and obtain contact details of other companies that have data on the same substance. Thanks to the central workflow system, the Agency and Member States authorities can evaluate and review dossiers on chemical substances online and better understand how chemicals are effectively used in Europe. After 2 months in production, 4 627 companies signed-up and more than 32.000 pre-registrations dossiers were received, referring to 14.000 chemical substances.