Why Jabil chose SDS Manager to automate SDS compliance across 100+ sites
One of the world’s largest manufacturers — 140,000 employees across 25+ countries — used SDS Manager to replace fragmented, manual SDS control. Here is what its EHS Center of Excellence found.
- Industry
- Electronics Manufacturing Services (NYSE: JBL, S&P 500)
- Headquarters
- St. Petersburg, Florida · founded 1966
- Scale
- 140,000 employees · 100+ manufacturing sites · 25+ countries
- Features evaluated
- Automated SDS acquisition · Update monitoring · Multi-language SDSs · Restricted-list screening · QR & mobile access
- 100+Manufacturing sites moving to one SDS system
- 25+Countries covered across four continents
- 140,000Employees worldwide
- 5/5Evaluation rating
SDS Manager transformed SDS management from a manual document-handling process into an automated, traceable, and compliance-driven workflow.
Jabil Inc. designs, engineers, and manufactures for the world’s leading OEMs with 140,000 employees across 100+ manufacturing sites in 25+ countries. At that scale, chemical safety documentation is a system of its own, and it runs through the company’s EHS Process Excellence Center of Excellence, where Ivan Potoki works as a Global EHS Expert.
The problem was that the SDSs didn’t live in one system. They lived everywhere: local drives, SharePoint folders, third-party services — each site with its own version of the truth, each update found by hand. Here is why Jabil went looking for something better, and what its evaluation found.
The challenge
- 1Decentralized storage: SDSs scattered across local drives, SharePoint folders, and third-party services, with no single source of truth
- 2Manual, slow updates: supplier requests and periodic checks, with no automated way to catch expired or revised versions; compliance tracking was reactive, not proactive
- 3Language and regional compliance: local-language SDSs and regional requirements, particularly across the EU and Asia, took extra manual effort to verify
- 4Non-compliance exposure: manual control meant an inherent risk of missing SDSs, outdated versions, and incomplete regulatory coverage
What the evaluation found: automation where the hours went
The capabilities Jabil identified map one-to-one onto its four pain points — acquisition, updates, languages, and control.
SDSs that source and update themselves
The functionality Ivan’s team values most: automated SDS acquisition from supplier databases and automated update monitoring. The hours now spent requesting documents from suppliers, verifying completeness, and checking for new versions become the system’s job, turning document control from reactive to proactive.
One library for a global footprint
A centralized digital library with bulk upload and reconciliation tools replaces the scattered drives and folders with multi-language SDS availability, answering the regional compliance burden across the EU and Asia.
From the floor to the audit
QR codes with mobile and offline access put current SDSs in the field instantly; automated labels replace manual labeling; structured, extracted data simplifies reviews; and reconciliation and archive tools cut audit preparation time.
Screening against restricted lists
Active SDSs are checked against restricted chemical lists — including Jabil’s own BaRS list — so restricted ingredients are screened out of the chemical inventory more effectively.
The expected result: compliance that runs on rails
Jabil is mid-migration — these are the outcomes its evaluation points to.
- Workload SDS management shifts from manual document handling to an automated, traceable, compliance-driven workflow
- Compliance reduced risk of missing, outdated, or inaccessible SDSs, with improved transparency, traceability, and regulatory assurance
- Screening chemical products checked against restricted lists, including Jabil’s internal BaRS list
- Verdict a 5/5 evaluation rating — and an expectation to recommend SDS Manager to peers responsible for chemical safety and compliance
