Trinseo manufactures safety and sustainability with 3E

Trinseo: A Leader in Specialty Material Solutions and Sustainability

Trinseo®, a specialty material solutions provider, partners with companies to bring ideas to life in an imaginative, smart, and sustainably focused way. From design to manufacturing, Trinseo taps into decades of experience in diverse material solutions to address customers' unique challenges across industries including building and construction, consumer goods, medical, and mobility.

Trinseo's focus areas include plastics, latex binders, and synthetic rubber. In each, its goal is to be the premier partner for innovative technologies that enable companies to achieve sustainability goals.

With a global footprint of 26 manufacturing sites and deep expertise in regulated subject areas, Trinseo turned to 3E to help manage regulatory updates, improve Safety Data Sheet (SDS) authoring processes, maximize the value of their SAP platform, and streamline change management during acquisitions.

Trinseo partnered with 3E, selecting 3E ERC+ Suite™ content to enable efficient creation of globally compliant SDSs in SAP and 3E Insight™ for Chemicals to quickly and easily search product compliance regulations issued by more than 150 countries.

“This transformation [partnering with 3E] would result in more streamlined processes, facilitating incorporation of acquisitions, migration into S/4HANA, and improving regulatory compliance processes by ensuring we could be up to date with the latest developments.”
– Michael Smith, SAP EH&S Application Analyst, Trinseo

Facing Challenges

Trinseo, like many enterprises operating in highly regulated sectors, faced major challenges in:

• Monitoring and understanding evolving regulatory changes
• Optimizing operational workflows
• Maintaining compliant Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) across global markets
• Developing and sustaining compliant Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) across various product lines and global markets, all while meeting the evolving needs of its customer base.

Mergers, acquisitions, and technology migrations added further complexity. After acquiring new business units, Trinseo needed a standardized and scalable way to manage compliance data within SAP.

Improving SDS Authoring with 3E ERC+ Suite™

When Trinseo assumed SDS authoring responsibilities from DOW® on July 1, 2019, the company created the Trinseo Hazard Communications (HazCom) Team to take ownership of SDS processes.

Leveraging 3E ERC™ content, the team standardized tools and data inherited from previous systems, eliminated inefficiencies, and improved compliance accuracy.

“The main activity allowing the team to accomplish these goals was leveraging the 3E ERC package by converting to standard the highly customized tools and data we inherited.”
- Michael Smith, SAP EH&S Application Analyst, Trinseo

Paving the Way for SAP S/4HANA® Migration

As Trinseo migrated to SAP S/4HANA®, 3E's integrated regulatory content enabled seamless standardization, preparing the company for long-term success.

3E, as SAP's exclusive provider of embedded regulatory content for S/4HANA, ensured a unified and intelligent compliance ecosystem - delivering consistent data, faster processing, and reduced risk.

Streamlining Mergers and Acquisitions with 3E Tools

When Trinseo acquired Altuglas's acrylic business, it needed to consolidate two complex systems. With 3E, Trinseo was able to:

• Streamline integration and data consolidation
• Reduce time and effort needed for custom solutions
• Accelerate post-merger onboarding

“Now we have a more streamlined integration with new acquisitions. Because of the standardized system, we can merge faster with less time developing custom solutions.”
- Michael Smith, SAP EH&S Application Analyst, Trinseo

Finding Solutions

To tackle these challenges, Trinseo implemented 3E's integrated content and regulatory research tools, combining automation, standardization, and expert insight.

3E ERC+ Suite™

• Provides access to current, comprehensive global substance lists and reference data
• Delivers chemical property and hazard information, multilingual phrase libraries, expert classification rules, and SDS templates directly within SAP EHS® and SAP S/4HANA®
• Supports over 350,000 substances with global regulatory coverage

3E Insight™

A powerful, centralized regulatory reference and decision-support tool that enables:

• Access to thousands of regulatory lists and full-text legislation for 150+ countries
• Identification of problematic ingredients early in the product development lifecycle
• Personalized dashboards for ongoing compliance tracking

Achieving Results: Faster SDS Authoring and Seamless Integration

With 3E, Trinseo achieved:

• Regulatory compliance aligned with the latest global developments
• Streamlined processes and reduced SDS authoring time
• Consistent, standardized data through expert rules
• Smooth migration into SAP S/4HANA®
• Efficient integration of data from mergers and acquisitions

Beyond measurable success, Trinseo valued the close partnership with 3E.

“At some point I felt like they were absolutely part of Trinseo themselves.”
- Fernando Romero-Porro, Global Hazard Communications Leader, Trinseo