As a logistics service provider working in chemical logistics and warehousing, it is our ambition to guarantee safe working conditions for our workers, to protect the environment and to provide our customers with best-in-class solutions. To that end, we store and handle chemicals , based on the characteristics laid out in the SDS (Safety Data Sheet) for every product. Extracting all necessary information from these data sheets is a time-consuming manual process – certainly if you consider that we process over 30,000 SDSs every year. Today, however, we are adopting an AI model that automates this data extraction and thus frees up valuable time for our people. This marks another significant step in the ongoing implementation of digital tools to constantly optimise our tailor-made logistics solutions for our customers. Robin Ceunen and Liesbeth Grieten share their insights on this latest innovation.

“A chemical product’s SDS contains crucial information on how to safely handle and store the dangerous good in question and what to do in case of a spill”, says Robin Ceunen, Supply Chain Innovation Expert. Several of our departments need this information, for instance to determine what kind of personal protective equipment workers need to wear, what sprinklers and other fire protection measures to implement, with what other chemicals the goods can safely be stored in the same space, and so on.

Key information, retrieved automatically

“Up until now, all these departments had to manually search through the SDS for every individual product to find the information they specifically require. It goes without saying that this a time-consuming work that demands the highest level of accuracy. So over the course of the last months, and because of the new world of possibilities opened by the rise of generative AI models, we have finalised a proof of concept to automate this SDS data extraction with artificial intelligence. We have now completed this phase and are achieving results that are at least as accurate as human interpretations of the SDS. And this is just a first part of what is to become a fully integrated AI-powered solution for SDS handling and product acceptance.”

Optimising operations, safety, and commercial engineering

The new tool makes it easier to find all information we need to handle these chemicals. In addition, it prepares us for a future in which we expect SDSs to be reviewed more frequently to reflect regulations that become ever more stringent. However, not only operational and safety departments are experiencing the benefits of this AI application. For our commercial engineers, in particular, this is a helpful support. Liesbeth Grieten, Head of Commercial Engineering: “In order to draft accurate offers for chemical warehousing and to develop tailor-made solutions, we need to carefully screen all SDSs of every chemical product a client wants us to store. It is often impossible to handle this massive volume of data sheets individually in a timely manner before we have to submit the offer, so we work based on generalised assumptions that do not always match reality. With AI taking over this task, we can now provide our clients with substantiated offers that contain more accurate advice. We’re already looking forward to other AI-powered tools that will help us to further tailor our one-stop shop logistics solutions to our customers’ requirements.”

The road ahead

As an innovation leader in logistics, H.Essers has always been experimenting with digitization, automation, and artificial intelligence. Robin Ceunen: “We have a high administrative workload, so we’re constantly looking for ways to tackle these processes more efficiently and to free up more time to develop comprehensive solutions for our customers. For instance, we have RPA (Robotised Process Automation) in place to automate administrative workflows, and are using AI to execute customs processes since 2022. Recently, AI technology has been taking leaps and is opening new worlds, including use cases that weren’t possible just a few years ago. This SDS solution has paved the way for further development in this direction. In fact, it is just one of the projects we’re implementing as part of our AI Roadmap. Throughout H.Essers, we’re organising inspiration and information sessions to show colleagues what is possible with AI and to stimulate them to come up with new use cases. Our ultimate goal is to stay at the forefront of innovation, all to provide our clients with optimal solutions for their supply chains.”