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Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS)

National and international conventions governing hazardous materials typically require that a manufacturer provide a material safety data sheet (MSDS) with each potentially hazardous substance that they distribute. These sheets are designed to provide the recipient with comprehensive safety-related information about the hazardous substance including: physical properties, component chemicals, safe handling procedures, fire-fighting procedures, storage requirements, classifications, such as UN Number, GIS number, OSHA Tier category, and ecological information. An MSDS can be 16 to 20 pages.

As a recipient of a hazardous substance, you must review the MSDS information and handle the substance accordingly. Moreover, a recipient must make the MSDS available to employees and local emergency and safety personnel. Failure to do so can result in hefty fines and, more importantly, compromise the safety of your employees.

Since organizations such as hospitals, universities, research centers, and manufacturing facilities might handle hundreds or even thousands of hazardous materials in the course of daily work, a corporate safety manager needs a convenient way of electronically inventorying the MSDS documents that they receive. Simply storing the hard-copy MSDSs in a binder will not suffice; safety managers need to be able to search for MSDSs by various criteria, such as GIS number, manufacturer, or location on site, so that they can easily look up key information about the materials.

To enable safety personnel to effectively manage the MSDSs for the materials used at their site, the ARCHIBUS MSDS application provides a comprehensive electronic inventory system for cataloging the MSDSs that are received on site and then associating these MSDSs with the particular building locations housing these substances. With just a few keystrokes, safety managers can access complete MSDS information for the substances found in a specific room. This type of information is vital to the employees working in this room and first responders containing a building emergency.

Rather than inputting into the ARCHIBUS system all the data from the manufacturer's MSDS, safety managers enter key information about each MSDS and then link to the complete MSDS stored on the company's web site or the MSDS stored in the ARCHIBUS document system. Thus,safety managers enter the most pertinent safety data and the data needed to locate MSDSs, and rely on the company's web site or the MSDS document checked into the ARCHIBUS document management system for other details. This structure enables the ARCHIBUS system to act as a repository of your MSDS documents, rather than storing every detail of each MSDS.

With the ARCHIBUS MSDS application, safety managers will find that they have a consistent process and reliable structure for managing their inventory of MSDSs, thereby enhancing workplace safety and ensuring that they adhere to the many regulations concerning hazardous substances.

Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS)
Location	Environmental & Risk Management domain Material Data Safety Sheets application
Also known as	Safety Data Sheet (SDS) Product Safety Data Sheet (PSDS) CLP Regulation Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 on the classification, labeling, and packaging of substances and mixtures Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS)
Business Result	Reduce the risks, complexity, and time associated with gathering, maintaining, and retrieving required documentation for the safe handling of potentially hazardous materials. Ensure a complete MSDS inventory, decreasing risk and regulatory violations. Efficiently manage your hazardous material documentation.
Used By	Health and Safety Officers Compliance Officers Health and Safety Managers Laboratory Directors General Employees Emergency Responders Process Engineers General Employees
Reasons for Automating	To save time by reducing the manual effort involved in keeping an ongoing record of every MSDS required throughout an organization. To gain transparency into the presence of hazardous materials and reduce potential exposures and errors in handling. To share data and coordinate with other business units in order to reduce exposures to hazardous materials. To leverage other facilities data, such as space inventory, floor plans, and GIS mapping, for use with hazardous material data. To quickly and reliably retrieve critical information for first responders.
Prerequisite Applications	None.
Applications Using the Results of this Application	None.
Reports/Results	Retrieve Material Data Safety Sheet (MSDS) Print MSDS MSDS Locations List MSDS Chemical Inventory MSDS Product Inventory MSDS Constituents by Product MSDS Details by Provider MSDS Constituent Locations MSDS Product Location MSDS Location Highlights MSDS Geographic Drill-Down

The following users are typically involved in managing, analyzing, and MSDSs. They may access basic MSDS information from the ARCHIBUS system, and then consult the actual MSDS document for further details.

User	Tasks
Health and Safety Officer Compliance Officer	Has overall responsibility to ensure that the company complies with regulatory requirements. Ensures employee and public health and safety. Use summary lists of chemicals or MSDSs for high-level reporting requirements, fast access to focused information for emergency response teams, and an overall perspective on hazard locations and risks associated with them.
Health and Safety Manager	Coordinates a hazard communication program at a plant or site level under authority of a plant manager. Screens all chemical procurements to ensure that proper documentation is in place. Ensures that employees have access to MSDSs and appropriate training.
Lab Director	Oversees the details of chemical storage, use, documentation, and training in academic, research, or clinical settings.
Emergency Responder	Checks for the presence of potentially hazardous materials and plans for necessary precautions and safety equipment. First responders may also use MSDS data when administering treatment to those exposed to hazardous materials.
Process Engineer	Reviews MSDS information to properly design work processes and procedures that consider special handling and storage of substances and the required personal protective equipment.
General Employee	Anyone who works with or may be exposed to hazardous substances in the course of their day-to-day work. People in this potentially broad and diverse group need ready access to MSDSs so they can understand the nature of the chemicals with which they work, proper handling procedures, and emergency guidelines. These users may not be frequent ARCHIBUS users, perhaps only signing in as needed for MSDS information.
Business Process Owner - Facilities	Sets up background data about the facility, such as locations, organizations, and equipment information. This information provides the physical and organizational context in which the rest of the application operates. The Facilities BPO has knowledge and authorization to define and edit this facility information, but will not necessarily interact with the MSDSs or other Risk domain features.
Business Process Owner - MSDS	Sets up the background data from which users can choose when entering MSDSs into the system. This information includes lists of materials, lists of chemical constituents, categories, and hazard ranks. The person entering this data is well-versed in MSDS and safety procedures and management.