SharedSDS is a community driven system with semi-automated SDS authoring.
It is initially aimed at the small end of town. Eventually though, it will cover the entire chemical industry supply and distribution chain world-wide including workplaces in which chemical products are used.
The initial target audience for SharedSDS is chemists who author safety data sheets. They need a GHS classification system right now as a tool to reduce their human effort and error.
These chemists also suffer from data deprivation. They always complain about difficulty sourcing data from suppliers and elsewhere. Intellectual property in expensively derived substance data as well as trade secrets in mixture ingredients are also barriers to getting classification data.
Much worse, data obtained from elsewhere goes out of date. This is quill and ink thinking in the 21st century. It is the hardest problem of all.
Exporters also have problems reconfiguring their SDSs for jurisdictions with classification rules different than the GHS and/or different in their home jurisdictions.
You only need to name ingredients with their proportions to classify a mixture and produce a semi-automated SDS which auto-configures for different jurisdictions and languages. With invisible ingredient data sharing there is no need for suppliers to reveal their trade secrets.
All sharing - both SDS and data - is controlled by SharedSDS licensing which delivers an agreed shared revenue stream to SharedSDS and the owner of the SDS and data.
Having a good SDS authoring system available free helps the cash-sensitive echelons of the chemistry industry world-wide to manage their SDSs and safety data for the benefit of everyone.
A small disclaimer: It is free for SDS authors and end-users in the workplace but not necessarily for the resellers, decanters, distributors and importers. Those in the middle pay a token fee for wrapping the core SDS with their own contact details and logo. That fee is shared equally with the author. But the author may specify "no fee" for particular distributors in which case SharedSDS will be completely free.
The software is built for its users. Change is driven by its user community. The discussion and issue tracking mechanisms are in place for the SharedSDS community to prioritise - and keep - what they want in the software.
The community has a vested interest in driving SharedSDS towards chemical industry best-practice and regulatory harmonisation. See SharedSDS Foundation.
Sharing SDS content via licensing lets resellers have the manufacturer's expertise under their own headers, footers and contact detail. The benefits of sharing are:
Data is entered by authors and assumed to belong to them. It is in the interest of all authors to curate that data. Keep it fresh for their own purposes. SharedSDS however can visit public databases and collect substance data on demand. It will put that information into data notes attached to the substance for the author to peruse and perhaps use. As users request information from other databases those connections can be programmed.
Data entered by the community can be optionally shared (under license) with peer producers or downstream formulators either visibly or invisibly to maintain trade secrets. Like SDSs, data is optionally shared for a fee or no charge.
It costs nothing for a workplace to maintain a list of SDSs. There is no restriction on the number of workplaces or lists a company might want.
A company with workplace lists of SDSs receives automatic notification of changes triggered by the authoring company no matter which reseller wrapped SDS they happen to be using.
The SharedSDS API will let external systems add SDS links to workplace lists for supplied product - subject to appropriate security.
Third parties may integrate SharedSDS into their supply of regulatory compliance services to workplaces.
The anonymous public can search for and view SDSs. Anonymous search is restricted to product name or synonym.
The maximum number returned is one screenful - perhaps ten - randomly chosen from those fitting the search criteria.
The anonymous public does not have the facility to assemble lists of SDSs the way workplaces do.