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Environmental & Risk Management / Material Safety Data Sheets / Objectives

Develop an Inventory of Hazardous Chemicals and MSDSs

Objective

To get started with the MSDS application, and to comply with regulations, you will need an inventory of the hazardous materials stored and used at your facility. You might prefer to develop this information incrementally.

Solution

You can begin by developing a list that identifies the material, the manufacturer, the supplier, the location where the material is used, and the location where the material is stored. Every manufacturer of a potentially hazardous material is required to provide a standard set of information that is included in the MSDS. This information can be obtained from the manufacturer, or the supplier, or may be available in a library of MSDS information. As you are generating your inventory, it is a good practice to note your source for the MSDS to have as a reference when updating information..

A benefit of the system is that you don't have to enter all of the detail at the outset. It might work better for you to start out slowly by just entering the identifying information and loading the manufacturer's MSDS. Having just this information provides major advantages over storing only a hard copy of the MSDS. You can then tackle the additional information in separate phases. Although, it is not necessary to enter detailed information, in general, entering more details into the system increases your ability to analyze and quantify hazards at your facility.

Procedure

The following describes how you can develop your inventory incrementally:

• Identify and catalog approach. The minimum regulatory requirement is that a copy of the MSDS for all hazardous materials in use must be readily available in the locations where it is used and where it is stored. This minimum requirement could be accomplished by simply having a binder of printed MSDSs in close proximity to where the material is used and stored. If you are dealing with a limited number of hazardous materials and very few locations, this approach might work. However, it is more common for facilities to have hundreds or thousands of hazardous materials that are used and stored in many locations throughout a site. Consider a substance such as toilet bowl cleaner -- a common cleaning agent that may be present in every janitorial closet in the facility. The binder method requires a lot of leg work to get the MSDS to the location, and then continual review to make sure no one walked off with the binder or tore the toilet bowl cleaner MSDS sheet out. If all you do is enter identifying information and upload the MSDS, you are ahead of the paper process, because personnel can access the MSDS from anywhere there is a network-connected workstation.
• Associating MSDSs with locations. Further benefits can be gained by expanding on the basic "identify and catalog" approach. In addition to storing the manufacturer's MSDS, the MSDS application allows you to associate MSDSs with specific locations in your facility -- as general as a complete building or floor, or as specific as a room. Having location information gives you the ability to locate those hazardous materials using several different methods:
  • Reports:
  • MSDS Locations List
  • MSDS Constituents by Location
  • MSDS Products by Location
  • On a floor plan - MSDS Locations Highlight
  • On a map - MSDS Geographic Drill-Down
• Developing detailed data: To further develop your data, you can also enter the hazard classifications, constituent chemicals, and physical properties associated with each MSDS. Having this data gives you more capabilities for evaluating potential hazards, assisting during an emergency response, locating specific chemicals, and generating chemical inventory reports. Most of the time this additional data is readily available on the manufacturer's MSDS, so additional research is not typically needed.

Developing Background Data

The process of entering MSDSs will be more streamlined if the background data is entered into the system first. Once you have identified your initial objectives, you will want to make sure the appropriate background data is in the system. Background data is managed in the Business Process Owner - MSDS process, and includes company, chemical, hazard classification, container and unit data.See Overview: Business Process Owner - MSDS.

Define Companies

The company who provided the material and/or the manufacturer is an important piece of information collected while compiling the list of hazardous materials. This information is needed for reporting on the inventory and for contacting the provider to get updated MSDS information. The task Define Companies is used to enter manufacturer and supplier information.

Define Chemicals

An important component of the manufacturer's MSDS is the chemical constituents of the hazardous material. These constituents are needed for chemical inventory reporting. To assign the constituent chemicals to an MSDS, you need to have the chemicals in a reference list. The MSDS application ships with a "sample" list of chemicals. This list is not intended to be comprehensive and is provided as a courtesy without warranty for accuracy. It is recommended that you review this data for completeness and relevance to your facility. While you don't need a complete list of constituent chemicals at the outset, typically you will want to add chemical constituents to this reference list as you progress through the entry of your MSDSs. Chemical data is entered using the task Define Chemicals.

Define Hazard Classification System

In addition to the constituents of the hazardous material, the MSDS identifies the hazards associated with it. Hazards are used to quantify how dangerous the substance is. The particular hazards associated with the material determine how it must be handled and stored and may have a bearing on treatment if a user is exposed. There are a number of hazard classification systems in use. You will need to identify the systems used at your facility and document those in the MSDS application as background data. The MSDS application ships with four classification systems included.

• GHS (Globally Harmonized System)
• HMIS (Hazardous Material Identification System)
• NFPA (National Fire Protection Agency)
• 67/548/EEC -- The Dangerous Substances Directive of the European Union

If you choose to use these classification systems, make sure you review the definitions for consistency with the classification system specified for your site.

Several tasks under Business Process Owner - MSDS can be used to enter and/or edit classification systems. These tasks define a classification hierarchy from top to bottom:

1. Define Hazard Classification System
2. Define Hazard Classes
3. Define Hazard Categories

The view Define Hazard Classifications provides the ability to define all three levels on the same form.

Define Container Categories and Types

Container categories and types are used when assigning an MSDS to a location. It is important to know the size of the container for chemical inventory reporting as the attributes of the container type provide container size information. Two tasks provide the views to enter and modify Container data: Define Container Categories and Define Container Types.

If you enter container data, you are able to use the MSDS Chemical Inventory report, and the MSDS Product Inventory reports to review quantity. These reports calculate quantity based on the container types and the number of containers.

Define Units

In addition to specifying the container type when assigning MSDSs to a location, the quantity of the material can be recorded to be included in actual inventory and capacity reporting. In order to accommodate units in the system of choice for your site, ARCHIBUS provides a method for defining applicable units. Use the Define Units task for specifying units.

Define and Assign MSDS

In general, facilities need a separate list of hazardous materials for each work area. Each list identifies the corresponding MSDS for each material. The safety and health manager is responsible for maintaining a master list of these materials. In the ARCHIBUS MSDS application, the Define MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) task is used to enter definition and identification information for each material. Then, the Assign MSDS Locations or Assign MSDSs to Floor Plan task can be used to enter multiple storage and/or usage locations for the MSDS.

The hazardous materials list must be available to all employees where that material is used or stored. In the ARCHIBUS MSDS application, the MSDSs Locations List task provides convenient access to employees to browse the locations that have MSDSs assigned. In addition, employees can obtain a printable list of products to post at the location. They can also access the MSDSs for the location by signing in to ARCHIBUS and using Retrieve MSDS to perform a search.

Detailed Steps:

Note: This use case script assumes certain background data already exists in the project database. Ideally, users will have already defined items such as manufacturers (companies), hazard classifications, container categories and types, and chemical ingredients.

The process Manage MSDSs provides the access point for the tasks needed for defining MSDSs and assigning them to locations.

1. Obtain the MSDS for the chemical product to be entered. (examples are available at Dow Chemical Safety Data Sheets & Product Finder).
2. Navigate to Define Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs) This is the form where you enter the MSDS information. Five tabs help organize the data entry:
   • MSDS - complete all the fields with available information from your MSDS document.
   • Document - upload a copy of your MSDS document.
   • Hazard Classification - enter the hazard classification(s). The MSDS may present one or more sets of classification criteria, and will usually name the system (for example, HMIS, NFPA, or GHS are the most common, with GHS becoming most common).
   • Constituents - enter details about any hazardous chemical ingredients listed on the MSDS.
   • Physical Properties - record any provided details about physical properties like Volatile Organic Content (VOC), vapor density, specific gravity, flashpoint, and physical state. Click Save to save changes.
3. Assign MSDSs to a location using one of the following methods:
   • Navigate to Assign MSDS Locations to assign MSDSs to one or more locations. On this form, you can select the MSDSs to assign, and then choose the locations where the MSDSs should be assigned.
   • Alternately, you can use Assign MSDSs to Floor Plan to select MSDSs to be assigned to rooms on a floor plan.

Prepare Location Report

Typically, facilities will keep a hard copy of the MSDSs for all of the materials used in a location. The hard copy guarantees that workers can access the MSDS information even if the computer is down. It is also a backup for cases where someone may not be authorized to access the computer. To prepare a list of chemicals at a location use the Print MSDSs task.

1. On the Process Navigator, select the Review MSDSs / Print MSDSs task.
2. Use the Filter console to isolate the location of interest (buildings, floor, or room) by selecting the location and clicking Show.
3. Select the MSDSs to be printed.
4. Click Print Selected MSDSs. The print action outputs one copy of each unique MSDS in the selection.