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Upcoming enhancements to WVU’s laboratory chemical purchasing and inventory system

As part of efforts to enhance laboratory operations for faculty and staff who purchase and/or inventory chemicals, the  Environmental Health and Safety and Procurement, Contracting and Payment Services teams are introducing  Research Materials Management (RMM) as West Virginia University’s standard chemical procurement and chemical inventory system.

Following a successful pilot of the platform at Health Sciences , WVU has expanded RMM to all faculty and staff on the Morgantown campus beginning Monday, Feb. 21. The system will be available alongside the current supplier punchouts.


RMM is cloud-based and will reside within Mountaineer Marketplace. The platform offers many benefits, including real-time availability and pricing from suppliers. Features include:

  • Single Point Searches - RMM is integrated with Fisher, VWR, Qiagen and Sigma chemical catalogs. Users can compare size, availability and pricing from a single-source search. Chemicals from eMolecules also are available.
  • Chemical Storeroom Availability - RMM allows the Environmental Health and Safety team to catalog and reuse chemicals that are not needed in their current laboratory, thereby reducing waste and reusing current stock.
  • Container Sharing - Given current supply chain issues, this feature allows users to see other laboratories that may have extra chemicals on-hand while performing source searching in the hosted catalogs.
  • Chemical Inventory Process Changes
  • Safety Data Sheets (SDS) cataloging - The RMM system will integrate barcoding of containers with inventory for laboratories and join SDS to chemicals within a single system. SDS includes information, such as properties of each chemical, physical, health and environmental health hazards, protective measures and safety precautions for handling, storing and transporting chemicals. SDS are available on the Environmental Health and Safety website via a “Chemical Safety SDS” button.
  • Structure Searching - Users can search substances in RMM via an integrated chemical structure search.

Additional resources, including instructions for placing an order in RMM inside of Mountaineer Marketplace and managing your lab inventory in the system, are available on the Environmental Health and Safety website.

In the meantime, Contact EHS at RMM@mail.wvu.edu or 304-293-5796 with any questions.