Worldwide Quality Assurance

CEFIC CDI-T (Chemical Distribution Industry- Tanks)

CEFIC, The European Chemical Industry Council, represents directly or indirectly about 40,000 chemical companies in Europe. CEFIC consists of national chemical industry federations of 22 countries in Europe and large international companies, which are members in their own right.

In 1991 chemical companies recognized the need to take a renewed look at the safety, quality and environmental aspects related to the provision of logistic services. As a consequence working groups, with membership from national chemical federations, chemical companies and representative logistic service providers were established to develop a Safety and Quality Assessment System (SQAS) for the inspection of bulk liquid hazardous storage in tanks on both small and large tank farms (CDI-T).

CDI-T Assessment commonly addresses areas such as: Communications, Equipment Maintenance and Inspection, Management Policy, Operational Instructions, Quality, Safety, Health and Environmental Procedures, Security and Site Inspection. CDI-T enables chemical companies to have the quality and safety management systems of their logistic service providers assessed in a uniform manner, thereby avoiding multiple assessments by individual chemical companies. The results of a CDI-T assessment, carried out by and independent assessor, do not lead to a certificate but are used by an individual chemical company to evaluate the performance of its service providers. CDI-T helps, along with other tools and criteria, in the process of selecting service suppliers and in defining improvement areas with each of them.