Case Study: A Trade Association Automates Paper-Intensive Process

Client: Personal Care Products Council (the Council), a trade association that provides a complete range of services that support the personal care products industry’s needs and interests in the scientific, legal, regulatory, legislative, and international fields. The organization has 600 member companies.

Problem: Every year the organization was accepting 2,000 applications per year for “INCI” names – a system of standardized names for ingredients in cosmetics and toiletries. All ingredients in all products in the United States are named via an extensive submission and review process managed by the Council. All applications were managed via paper forms and fax communications.

Solution: Proximo created a centralized database and web-site. Companies around the world can register on the web and submit applications online, including all technical information and drawings of molecular diagrams. The entire process of review, follow-up, and approval is managed via the system. Eventually, the system was modified to permit the Council to charge for the applications via online credit card payments and to export the approved applications to a publications database managed by the association.

Result: The INCI Application system, which now contains over 8,000 applications, has enabled the Council to save multiple person-days per month of effort by moving away from a paper-based system, to process more applications in less time, and to save a significant amount of money on postage for multiple correspondences for every one of those 8,000 applications..