General Questions

1. What makes The WERCS® MSDS software so unique in the industry?

2. Why does an MSDS solution need to be comprehensive, flexible and powerful?

3. What data is available with THE WERCS?

4. How does The WERCS® handle connectivity with other databases?

5. How does The WERCS® determine integration requirements for The WERCS® to interface with a customer’s other business systems?

6. Does The Wercs, Ltd. do customization work for clients?

7. Is The WERCS® a stand-alone, client-server or mainframe application?

8. Does The WERCS® handle structured documents other than MSDSs?

9. How does The Wercs, Ltd handle training?

10. How do you handle vendor-inbound MSDS documents?

Answers

1. What makes The WERCS® MSDS software so unique in the industry?

The Wercs, Ltd. originally developed The WERCS® for GE Silicones in the 1980s. At the time, this division of GE used nearly 20,000 different kinds of chemicals including plant supplies, raw materials, work in progress, and finished goods in a variety of plants around the world. As such, GE had both complicated internal needs and extensive customer obligations that required the ability to generate MSDSs in many different languages and in several formats. Also, like your business, their needs, business rules, and subjection to regulations were in constant flux. The Wercs Ltd., in conjunction with their environmental, health, and safety department professionals succeeded in providing a dynamic solution for this company. Today this solution is called The WERCS®.

2. Why does an MSDS solution need to be comprehensive, flexible and powerful?

Three significant reasons: Liability, Compliance and the Global marketplace:

First, The Wercs Ltd. has designed The WERCS® to diminish your liability with customers and employees. To do this, we take advantage of the Windows point and click action on an extensive set of pre-written text phrases. Regulatory professionals, not computer programmers, developed these text phrases. By minimizing the amount of typing required to assemble an MSDS, the number of potential mistakes is vastly reduced. When the user does decide to create a new text phrase or cover letter, The WERCS® contains a great spell-checking tool with a customizable dictionary. Another way which The WERCS® can reduce your liability is by making MSDSs easily and quickly available on the shop floor via our Web Viewer. Our flexible, easy search criteria enable the proper MSDS to be found when it’s needed. We designed The WERCS® so that any employee or guest on your system can quickly recognize hazards that may be associated with any particular chemical. They can instantly see protective wear icons, pictures, and hazard labels. Also, our multi-lingual option allows users of The WERCS® to read on-line or printed information in their own native language. All of these demonstrate that your company cares about providing easy, accurate safety information to the people you do business with. This reduces your liability.

Second, The WERCS® will help you with your compliance issues. Whether it is compliance at your plant or at a plant in another country, The WERCS®, when fully implemented, will thoroughly track, monitor and automatically issue required MSDSs in virtually any format. Histories of MSDSs sent to customers as well as employees are kept by product. In, addition, with our regulatory transaction monitoring capability, any computer based transaction involving inventory can be measured for approval against a host of regulations before the transaction can be completed. Sometimes this is called lockout. Orders, purchases, material movement, formulation approval and shipping are just some examples of transactions that can be monitored.

Third, the global marketplace...everything that we have put into our MSDS software is with an eye toward succeeding in today’s world markets. Multi-lingual documents, multi-lingual GUI interfaces, multiple formats, multi-user and multi-plant, EU compliant — you’ll be ready with The WERCS®.

3. What data is available with The WERCS®?

Text codes and 4500+ phrases available in over 35 languages.
Standard sample US and European formats
The CHIPS 97 list of chemical classifications for Europe.
EU Annex I Chemical List
A set of WHMIS, FIFRA, OSHA, HMIS, DOT classification rules.
A set of ANSI rules.
Pre-Defined SARA classifications for running 311,312, NJ Right to Know

4. How does The WERCS® handle connectivity with other databases?

One of the most powerful features of The WERCS® is its open connectivity. Uses ODBC, Microsoft’s connectivity standard, which allows connection with dozens of proprietary databases (Oracle, SQL-Server, DB2, MS Access etc.) Uses Attach Tables for its database - tables can reside virtually anywhere. The WERCS® is MAPI (Messaging Application Program Interface) compliant. This allows The WERCS® to interface with a wide variety of electronic mail systems for the purpose of sending MSDSs and mail messages to other users. These other users may be across the Internet.

5. How does The WERCS® determine integration requirements with a customer's other business systems?

If you are interested in integrating one or more of The WERCS® modules with your existing business system, then The Wercs Ltd.'s consultants are trained with real world experience to provide integration services for the interfaces such as formulation, inventory and order entry.

6. Does The Wercs, Ltd. do customization work for clients?

Yes. Our current rates for customization and integration services are available upon request.

7. Is The WERCS® a stand-alone, client-server or mainframe application?

Originally The WERCS® was an IBM mainframe application. However, the current version runs in the client server environment.

8. Does The WERCS® handle structured documents other than MSDSs?

Yes, in fact almost any document, which can be distilled down to a structure, can be managed. Some examples are Product Data Sheets, Regulatory Overviews and Process Safety Documents are easily implemented into any format within The WERCS®.

9. How does The Wercs, Ltd handle training?

We offer training programs that may be conducted at your site or our site. We generally suggest initial basic training followed by a period of using our product. Advanced training is best carried out subsequent to using the product for a period of time. We additionally maintain a series of step-by-step instruction in common procedures on our web site.

10. How do you handle vendor-inbound MSDS documents?

DocuWercs® is a powerful software application for scanning, annotating, indexing and publishing your inbound MSDS documents to our Web Viewer Application. With DocuWercs® you can publish the image of the original MSDS and a customized cover sheet that can give all of your inbound MSDSs a uniform look on the web.