CRSAS Overview
The chemical industry utilizes to a large extent the logistic services offered by carriers and third parties to store, handle and transport raw materials, intermediates and finished chemical products. Chemical companies need assurance that these operations are carried out in a safe and high quality manner with due regard for the protection of employees, the public and the environment. In the past this assurance has often been obtained by individual chemical companies undertaking periodic audits of their logistic service providers and distributors, leading to a fragmented approach and a multiplicity of auditing programs which was costly and inefficient for both the chemical, transport and distributor industries.
In 2015, with strong guidance and support from China Ministry of Transport and Research Institute of Highway Ministry of Transport, Dangerous Goods Road Transport Association of China (DGTAC) was formed in Beijing, China. This new non-profit organization aims to promote dangerous goods transportation safety and quality in China. The members of DGTAC are come from major dangerous goods road carriers of China logistics industry voluntarily.
In order to achieve DGTAC safety and quality missions and incorporate with Regulations Concerning Road Transportation of Dangerous Goods (JT/T 617) implementation, DGTAC invited representatives from multi-international chemical enterprises and formed a non-profit branch – Chemical Road Transportation Safety Assessment System (CRSAS) Technical Committee in January 2018. CRSAS Technical committee set vision to formulate and promote sustainable chemical logistics road transport safety and quality assessment system in China. CRSAS was leveraged from Safety Quantity Assessment System (SQAS) originally which was one of Cefic ICE program. Moreover, CRSAS also combined regulatory requirements, recommendations of JT/T 617 and suitable industrial best practices for China chemical and logistic industry. In February 2019, Association of International Chemical Manufacturers Association (AICM) and the National Dangerous Goods Road Transport Service Alliance (DGTAG) decided to upgrade the ChinaRSQAS upgraded by AICM into the CRSAS system, making it a unified chemical road transport safety quality. Evaluation platform.
CRSAS provides a tool to assess the quality, safety, security, environment, sustainability management systems of road transport service providers in a uniform manner by independent assessors, using a standardized questionnaire thereby avoiding multiple assessments by individual chemical companies. CRSAS helps chemical companies in the process of selecting road transport service providers and in defining improvement actions with each of them. CRSAS also extends its value to road transport service providers on establishment of chemical road transport industry norms, such as safety and quality promotion, network optimization, mutual aids, etc.
A CRSAS assessment by an independent assessor does not lead to a certificate but results in a detailed factual report, by which, each individual chemical company is able to evaluate and qualify assessed company per their own criteria.
Although CRSAS does not guarantee the safety and quality of the service provided, it does offer a mechanism to evaluate continuous improvement. The assessed companies can set improvement action plan in CRSAS after assessment reporting and update action status as their own wills. The chemical companies also can understand assessed companies’ improvement status online. These mutual trusts create and/or strengthen the foundation for a true partnership between chemical companies and logistics service providers.
