Did you know that in Europe, there are more than 600,000 calls per year to poison centres for medical advice regarding contact with dangerous chemicals or products? Most of these calls are because children have gotten a product or substance in their mouth, nose, eyes, etc. Quick identification is key to a proper response, and this is where the Unique Formula Identifier comes in. The Unique Formula Identifier (UFI) is an alphanumeric code created by the UFI generator provided by the European Chemical Agency. The person calling the poison centre can give the UFI and in seconds has accurate information on how to respond to the situation.

These could be products such as the washing powder for clothes or dishes, or the blue liquid in your car to de-ice your windshield or windscreen in the winter. SAP S/4HANA for product compliance now supports poison centre notifications (PCN) and the use of unique formula identifiers. This is important to helping to ensure a timely and correct medical response. This is also true for workers handling chemicals or products with unsafe chemicals in production or in a warehouse, accidents happen.

In Europe, producers, and importers of dangerous chemical mixtures need to provide information relating to emergency health response and preventative measures. As a product stewardship specialist, you want to add the purpose to sell industrial chemicals within the European Union. When you do the compliance assessments for a product, you decide whether a PCN is applicable. If it’s required, then you need to generate a UFI and make a dossier for the PCN to the European Chemical Agency. After submission, the UFI can be printed on labels and you can update the data to ensure that it’s up to date and the product stays compliant. You can confirm Regulation Status and add a Unique Formula Identifier. This is now integrated into the product marketability functionality.