OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard is designed to protect against chemical-source injuries and illnesses by ensuring that employers and workers are provided with sufficient information to anticipate, recognize, evaluate, and control chemical hazards and take appropriate protective measures.
This information is provided through safety data sheets, labels, and employee training. But for SDSs, labels, and training to be effective, the hazard information they convey must be complete and accurate. Therefore, it is critically important to obtain comprehensive and correct information about the hazards associated with particular chemicals.
But rather than building new internal chemical management guidelines on a tight deadline, authoring software can facilitate the transition by automatically classifying materials.
Managing Multiple Suppliers
You know the scenario: You have several suppliers who classify the same material in different manners. One small formulation, regulatory or supplier change requires new SDS documents to be manually created, and constantly changing global regulations trigger hours of research and translation to make a chemical ingredient update.
How can end-users manage these multiple suppliers – without spending hours on new SDSs and risking misclassification?
When you have chemists, supply chain specialists and research and development groups working together, you need a system that can automate safety data sheet authoring and allow you to author and update in a matter of minutes – instead of days or weeks, all while reducing the potential for human error, shipping delays, and fines.
An SDS authoring software can help ensure product compliance and allows you to scale and enter new markets. One of the hallmarks of a good system is a user-friendly interface, that enables you to create and distribute accurate, compliant safety documents in just minutes, without needing to be a regulatory expert or chemist.
Ingredient Data Sources & Misclassification Issues
Currently, the methods and technology manufacturers use to create their safety data sheets are, unfortunately, resulting in a lot of product hazard misclassification. Misclassification has serious financial implications throughout the supply chain and negatively impacts employee safety. But how does this happen in the first place? It’s because most industries approach the creation of SDSs from the bottom ingredients up, instead of from the hazards down.
Think of it this way: Some hazardous ingredients may lose their hazardous properties when they’re mixed. For example, consider corrosivity. Both acids and bases are corrosive. But when mixed, they may not be. So what matters is the corrosivity of the end product. When you approach classification and SDSs from the hazard perspective, you have one path to the safety information an end-user needs, and it’s the shortest path.
Other ingredient data sources and misclassification considerations?
- Using a governmental or list data instead of using a supplier SDS, where general ingredient data sources aren’t specific to the supplier are used to create SDSs
- Generalizing pure substances without accounting for complicated raw materials or impurities
- Under classifying, resulting in an accident and potential fine
- Overclassifying, resulting in paying more in supply chain costs
- Overlooking a variety of sources to determine what your classification will be for your ingredients, such as where your data is coming from and the reliability of your source
Supplier Control & Accurate Safety Data Sheets
Whether you’re trying to manage multiple suppliers, ingredient data sources, sustain a safer workplace, or simply trying to avoid the costly and time-consuming re-work and re-design that’s associated with not knowing how the ingredients in your products are regulated and classified, let the regulatory experts help.
We can help you simplify multiple suppliers and the classification process with our SDS software that creates accurate SDSs – quickly and easily – while supporting chemists with innovative formulations based on what’s used most. What’s more, the patent-pending technology in our TotalSDS authoring software does was no other in the world does – it builds safety data sheets from the top or hazard down.
Contact us today to learn how we can help shoulder the responsibility of maintaining a safe, compliant workforce so you can get back to what matters most: your business!
