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Every year, chemical exposure in the workplace results in around 60,000 deaths and 860,000 illnesses.
One safety protocol for mitigating those numbers is keeping material data safety sheets on hand to provide quick access to first aid information. But workplaces like construction, manufacturing, and warehousing can have hundreds of these records, so how can you manage them to ensure they’re there when you need them?
Here are five tips for making the job a little easier.
1. Follow The Standard
OSHA sets out a hazard communication standard that should be your starting point for managing documents. The standard classifies potential hazards for different industries and sets the requirements for labeling and safety sheets.
The purpose of the sheets is to inform employees of potential hazards and what to do in dangerous situations. To that end, the main requirement for them is that they be onsite, readily accessible, and available for every product used in your facility.
2. Single Point Person
Avoid having things slip through the cracks by assigning someone primary responsibility for dealing with the safety materials. Their ongoing task should include acquiring new sheets and updated versions as needed. Your system should include some form of revision control to determine which sheets need to be updated.
They should be checking that the sheets are formatted correctly with all 16 sections and following up with manufacturers who fail to provide one.
3. Take It Digital
While you might want to still keep paper copies in binders, moving your MSDS sheets online offers easier access and better organization. You can take it one step farther by using a system that also has a mobile app for access.
If you do use digital versions, make sure everyone can easily access them, which means not placing them behind a login page or requiring a password. Your system should also be backed up regularly in case of a power outage, and you should maintain hard copies as a second backup.
4. Index Your Inventory
With the SDSs in a database, it should be easy for you to create an index of all the chemical products on your site. Your index could include supplier information and other identifiers. Tagging your sheets allows for easy searching to find the sheet you need and saves time on regulatory reporting.
5. Extract Key Data
The current sheet format calls for 16 sections, which is great for knowing where to find specific information, but only if everyone knows to look in Section 4 for first aid info. Figure out which sections hold the most important data for your site, and highlight them to make them stand out. This can also help with chemical risk assessments as well as helping employees find what they most need to know.
Manage Your Material Data Safety Sheets
Given the number and severity of chemical accidents, keeping material data safety sheets on hand can help responders in a crisis. Access to safety data sheets is a critical part of the hazard communication standard set by OSHA, but also an important resource for finding first aid information. Improve your management of them by setting a point person to be responsible and taking them digital to make them accessible anywhere.
If you found this article helpful, check out others on our site related to workplace safety and document management.
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