‍Challenge: A lean team managing their supply chain on spreadsheets

Auskem Laboratories is an Australian manufacturer of personal care products, formulating and blending raw materials into finished goods. As a GMP (ISO 22716:2007) and ISO (9001:2015) certified manufacturer document management and compliance is critical to their business.

Prior to ChemCloud, Auskem managed their incoming raw materials manually. Supplier communication was by email, blanket orders and incoming deliveries was managed in spreadsheets, and quality documents (SDS, CoAs) stored in shared folders.

As an R&D Chemist at Auskem, Emily Plummer’s role extends well beyond the lab. She also manages incoming deliveries and supplier communication, so keeping ordering and deliveries on track directly affects both product development and production.

Key Pain Points:

• Procurement and admin were consuming time that should have gone to R&D and new-product work.
• Blanket orders were tracked across email, phone and spreadsheets, so quantities often stopped reconciling
• SDS and CoA documents lived in local folders, making it hard to search for them

“Everything was going through emails manually. Excel spreadsheets for blanket orders, incoming deliveries”  

Emily Plummer, R&D Chemist

Solution: ChemCloud AI Agents to automate supply chain admin

Auskem implemented ChemCloud in March 2026. Within a few months it had become the day-to-day system for tracking orders, deliveries and quality documents, accessed both in the lab and by the warehouse team.

“In a short time it has become essential to our business … I was managing a lot of this work myself, and now a lot of this work has been automated” 

Emily, R&D Chemist

ChemCloud AI now automates approximately 300 tasks per month across a range of areas:

• Filing and Reviewing 50+ COAs per month;  doing a first review of every Certificate of Analysis (and following them up when not present), 
• Automatically storing 75+ product documents per month (e.g SDS, Spec, Certificates) and storing their expiry date
• Updating order status and ETA of 50+ orders per month, and chasing suppliers for an update if no confirmation received
• Tracking Non Conformance Rreport evidence and status when emailed from a supplier

By automating this work, Emily can spend more time on her main job - being an R&D chemist:

“The main benefit is, as an R&D chemist, I’m actually doing what I want to do when I’m at work - more R&D which is at the heart of our business.” 

Emily, R&D Chemist

Four areas have provided particular value

Feature 1: AI CoA review agent

As a GMP and ISO certified manufacturer, Auskem must file and review every Certificate of Analysis it receives for incoming orders.  Previously this was a manual, time consuming process - particularly picking up short shelf life materials.

ChemCloud’s COA Review Agent:

• Automatically reviews incoming Certificates of Analysis against specifications and posts a COA Report
• The AI Agent measures shelf-life against a set threshold, flagging any issues - so short-dated materials are caught before arrival
• ChemCloud AI will automatically request the COA for deliveries where no COA has been provided
• Specific benefit: Initial quality check is now automated and reported, reducing risk and mental load. In one case a low-shelf-life material was flagged and swapped with the supplier.

“It automatically flags the expiry date … checking every single incoming CoA for shelf life and specific parameters is time consuming work.. Now it’s automated.” 

‍Emily, R&D Chemist

Feature 2: ChemCloud AI Chat & Agent Tasks

ChemCloud AI gives the team at Auskem an easy way to access their supply chain data. 

A good use case for this is before supplier meetings - ChemCloud AI helps to summarise critical data points like annual usage, top materials and delivery performance before supplier meetings, making meetings more productive.

ChemCloud’s Human in the Loop workflow allows users to intervene when the AI lacks enough context to complete a task.

“I like that ChemCloud AI asks questions … you can speak with it almost like a person, rather than it doing the wrong thing in the wrong spot. You can tell it ‘no, that’s not the right thing.’”  

Emily, R&D Chemist

Feature 3: Centralised blanket order and delivery tracking

Auskem relies on distributors to manage local stock, and need a system to track the balance remaining on each blanket order.  ChemCloud gives them this configuration.

• Blanket Order interface tracks what has been placed, how much is left and when to reorder, alongside annual usage
• The deliveries page is available to the warehouse, so they can check incoming materials themselves and plan production
• Specific benefit: A live, accurate view of orders and reorder points; the warehouse self-serves instead of interrupting, and production can be scheduled around confirmed delivery dates

“ChemCloud is set up on a computer near the warehouse- the warehouse team just looks at it in the morning and can see the most recent ETA of the next delivery.. I don’t have to get hassled every second.” 

Emily, R&D Chemist

Feature 4: Centralised document management

Centralised document management is critical for ISO-certified manufacturers.  Having documents easily searchable, and accessible in one place is critical for compliance workflows.

• SDS, CoAs and composition data are organised per product in one place, and suppliers are automatically prompted for a CoA if it’s missing at delivery
• This document accessibility is critical for audits, warehouse safety and handling information, and when building finished-product SDS
• Specific benefit: Documents are current, audit-ready and fast to retrieve, instead of scattered across desktop folders and often out of date

“Everything is centralised in one place … I use the Document Register to find all the relevant documents, like composition breakdowns, active content information, specs, and more.” 

Emily, R&D Chemist

Results & Impact

Quantifiable Outcomes

• 6-7 hours saved per week on checking incoming deliveries, documents
• ‍250+ Approved Materials combinations managed in one place, with price and product analytics accessible by the whole team‍
• 300 AI Completed Tasks per month automating incoming supplier communications; including 50 COA reviews per month

“The main benefit is - as an R&D chemist - I’m actually doing what I want to do when I’m at work - more R&D and what needs to be done.” 

Emily, R&D Chemist

Additional Benefits

• Mobile access - Emily checks blanket-order balances live during supplier meetings and answers warehouse queries out of hours from her phone.
• Better supplier communication and ETAs - clearer visibility of when materials leave the warehouse, so Auskem is no longer “waiting weeks for things.”
• One short-dated material caught by the CoA agent and swapped before it became a problem.

Looking Forward – Would You Recommend ChemCloud? 

“Yes, I think it’s really helpful … it’s made everything more organised and central and we’re more efficient. I’m actually doing what I want to do when I’m at work - more R&D and what needs to be done. ” 

Emily, R&D Chemist