There are hundreds of cleaning stations located across the continent and millions of European Federation of Tank Cleaning Organisations (EFTCO) Cleaning Documents (ECD) are issued to companies.
EFTCO and its associated cleaning stations have always focused on their responsibilities for food safety, hygiene as well as sustainability.
Growing membership
EFTCO currently represents 21 member association in 25 countries in Europe with 630 tank cleaning stations. A further three associated global member complete the number of active members.
More than 25 years ago, the ECD was launched and more than 4 million completed documents are issued annually.
“This makes the ECD the most recognised and the number one cleaning document in Europe, alongside growing global expansion,” declared Lutz Harder, EFTCO secretary general.
“The ECD is a support document for every single tank cleaning operation in the supply chain process. It proves which cleaning steps have been performed. The uniform cleaning codes for describing these steps can be downloaded in several European languages.”
Environmentally-friendly
However, there is a conscious effort to incorporate greater digitalisation into the process and eventually move away from the paper document.
Harder added: “There is a huge amount of paper that we produce every year and, which, we would like to avoid.
“Since the introduction of digitialisation takes a lot of time, a dual system of paper ECD and digital documentation will determine our near future.
“The ECLIC eECD 2.0 initiative is the digital way to proceed in this.”
ECLIC is a non-profit association facilitating digital collaboration in chemical logistics, while respecting data ownership and striving for interoperable logistics industry solutions.
It allows companies to exchange data while increasing sustainability, compliancy and efficiency.
The digitalisation of the ECD and the usage of the electronic EFTCO Cleaning Document (eECD) is a partnership project between EFTCO and ECLIC.
Trustworthy service
To guarantee the same level of high-quality, reliable, trustworthy and environmentally friendly services, only cleaning stations which are authorised to use the ECD, will be allowed to register with ECLIC and start using eECDs or printed eECDs.
Harder said: “As such, EFTCO declares the digital eECD version as equally valid and trustworthy with an equal legal value compared to the paper version.
“The digital implementation and development from paper ECD to the usage of the eECD will create a temporary coexistence between paper and digital that may result in the necessity for the usage of a printed eECD document by non-digitalised partners.”
All organisations will be able to scan the unique QR code on the printed eECD to check the validity of the document, even if they do not have an eECD licence.
With this so-called eECD 2.0 process, each business can digitalise at their own pace and decide to use the paper ECDs, the digital eECD 2.0 paper copy with QR code, or the full enabled digital solution without any paper.
The digital eECD is available in English and German and it will be available in French and Dutch shortly.
The eECD within the enhanced eECD 2.0 process contains a new eECD compliancy score.
The eECD compliancy score is a dynamic measure that is developed throughout the “end-to-end” cleaning, planning and loading process.
It reflects the level of digital collaboration among all groups contributing to this specific eECD.
EFTCO has declared the printed eECD (attached) by using ECLIC as a valid cleaning document. No other format for cleaning documents or individual PDF solutions are authorised by the organisation.
For more information: Visit: on eftco.org
Forging ahead with digitalisation
