// AI for chemical distributors
AI in chemical distribution, tested on document requests your team already answered.
For distributors of industrial and specialty chemicals, solvents and ingredients sold in drums, totes, pails and bulk. Start with the paperwork that travels with every product: SDS, COA and regulatory statement requests, or orders that carry hazmat details from the customer's PO to the shipping paper. A free AI proof of concept runs one of them on copies of 20 to 30 your team already finished, and nobody logs in to your ERP or your SDS library. Your reviewer, the person on your team who knows that work best, decides whether it passed.
- Start with
- Document requests, or hazmat order entry
- You send
- Copies of 20 to 30 requests or orders already handled, NDA first
- Logins
- None: no ERP, SDS library or customer portal
- Never
- An SDS written, a COA certified or a hazard classified
- Your reviewer
- Named by the owner before it starts
- Price
- A range first, fixed before you sign
// Jobs we would test
Where a chemical distributor's paperwork stacks up
SDS, COA and regulatory requests
A customer wants the current SDS, the COA for the lot it received, and statements on TSCA, Prop 65 or REACH. Each request is answered from your approved files and drafted for your regulatory or quality team to send.
See the document requests pageHazmat order entry
Customer POs drafted as orders with the right drum, tote or bulk package, the shipping description for every regulated line and the ship-via your rules allow, for a customer service rep to check.
See the hazmat order entry pageIncoming COA checks
Producer COAs read as each lot is received and compared with the specs of the customers waiting on it, so a lot outside someone's limits is caught before it is allocated.
See the COA verification pageCustomer quality questionnaires
Supplier surveys about your quality system, storage, change notification and certifications, answered from your own approved policies for your quality manager to sign.
See the questionnaires page// Why documents come first
Every product you sell ships with paper attached
The SDS duty is yours, not only the producer's. OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard has distributors send a safety data sheet with a customer's first shipment and again with the first shipment after that sheet is updated, and wholesale distributors must also send one whenever a customer asks. So every request your team answered sits in your files beside the reply that went out, and each AI draft can be scored against it.
The 2024 update keeps revisions coming. OSHA's revised standard took effect on July 19, 2024. Manufacturers, importers and distributors evaluating substances had until May 19, 2026 to comply, and those evaluating mixtures have until November 19, 2027. Revised sheets for products already on your shelves will keep arriving in your library, and customers will keep asking whether the copy they hold is current.
Repackaging puts your name on the paper. Many chemical distributors break bulk into drums, totes and pails, blend to a customer's recipe or sell under a private label. When a label names your company as the responsible party, the one who can give more information on the chemical's hazards and emergency procedures, those questions land on your desk. The requests widen with it: COAs for lots you filled yourself, and statements a customer's regulatory group wants on file.
The trade's association sets a stewardship bar. The Alliance for Chemical Distribution, called NACD until it relaunched under its new name on November 7, 2023, runs ACD Responsible Distribution, a third-party verified program it started in 1991 that covers storage, handling, transportation and disposal. In the same spirit, the proof of concept works only from document versions your team has already approved.
Orders come second because one line can carry three rulebooks: OSHA's labeling rules, DOT's shipping description under 49 CFR Part 172 and, for a few common solvents, DEA's chemical diversion rules. A test on orders you already shipped shows where the drafts match your desk and where a trained person must decide.
// Across industries
Jobs compared with other industries
// How it runs
One desk, tested in three steps
- Step 01
Copies, once the NDA is signed
Send 20 to 30 finished examples of one job: customer requests with the replies your team sent, or POs with the orders and shipping papers they became. Nothing connects to your systems, and anything that can't leave the building becomes a look-alike built with your reviewer.
- Step 02
Your reviewer scores it
Before day one the owner names the reviewer, often the regulatory affairs or quality manager for documents and the customer service lead for orders. The success criteria are written down, and you get a price range for the live job. Your reviewer lines up every draft against what your team actually did.
- Step 03
Thirty days live, after a yes
The same job runs on new requests or orders for about 30 days. A qualified person on your team approves each reply before a customer sees it and each order before the warehouse does. A second job is decided and priced by itself.
Each job is priced on its own: a range before the proof of concept, then a fixed price before anything is signed.
Rob gives the range on the call, once he knows how many document requests or hand-keyed orders your team handles in a month, how many producers' SDSs you keep, and how many branches or terminals do the work.
// Questions
What chemical distributors ask first
Will the AI write or update our safety data sheets?
Can it sign a COA or a regulatory statement?
Does it decide how a material ships?
Which ERP or SDS system do we need?
Is any of this legal or regulatory advice?
Rob Eason, founder
// Book a call with Rob
Start with last month's document requests.
Thirty minutes with Rob. He asks who you are and your role, which job you'd test, and about how many SDS, COA and statement requests or hazmat orders your team handles in a month. Keep every file until the NDA is signed.
- Co-owned a 60-employee financial services firm and sold his share to his partner.
- Ran GOSO Technologies, a Boston solar company rated 5/5 across 24 Google reviews.
- 5/5 across 83 reviews in HighLevel's Certified Admin Directory.
- 4.3/5 from 6 Google reviews of Massmarket AI.
- Every directory and Google review, critical ones included, is shown word for word at massmarket.ai/reviews.
- Takes every proof-of-concept call himself.