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Environmental & Risk Management / Hazardous Materials / Manage Material Inventory

Assign Materials to Locations or Equipment Using a Form

Once SDS and product information has been entered into the system (using the Define Materials and Safety Data Sheets (SDS) task), you can assign the product to the location within the facility and enter the quantity of product found at this location. Each time that you receive a new shipment of a hazardous product and distribute it to various locations in your building, you can use this task to update each location's quantity information and the date it was received at this location.

Having locations associated with hazardous products can be beneficial in determining potential hazards for emergency response personnel or for planning activities that may take place there. For example, if you are planning to rehabilitate a lab space, it is helpful to know the hazardous products stored in this lab. Also, if you generate hard-copy binders for each location, you will know which SDSs to include in the binder for each location.

If you have the ARCHIBUS Hazardous Materials mobile app, you can periodically survey your facility to check your quantities at each location and upload the field results to the SDS system where you will see them in this view. Similarly, if you are just getting started tracking your hazardous products, you can start your electronic inventory by surveying the facility and uploading the data.

Note: If you have floor plan drawings, you can associate products with locations using the Assign Products to Rooms Using a Floor Plan task. The floor plan-based task is handy for assigning one product at a time, assigning products that do not need to be detailed to the subroom level (aisle, cabinet, bin, shelf), and for graphically showing the location of the product on the floor plan.

This topic has the following sections:

• Step 1: Access the task and use the filter
• Step 2: Review the products for a location
• Step 3: Assign products to a location and optionally to equipment
• To edit a product at its location
• To remove a product from a location
• Field reference

Step 1: Access the task and use the filter

Select the Environmental & Risk Management / Hazardous Materials / Manage -SDS / Assign Products to Locations task.

The view shows a list of products on the left and a list of locations on the right. Each lists includes:

• A Smart Search console for quick filtering. See Restricting Data Using Smart Search.
• Filter buttons in the title bars. These buttons bring up pop-up consoles that enable more complex filtering. For example, in the below image, the user has selected the Filter button in the Select SDS panel, and the system has displayed a form for entering criteria on which to search for SDSs. Similarly, the Select Locations panel includes a Filter to help you locate rooms. The Location pop-up console also has multiple select capabilities for all fields on the console.

For example, suppose you want to assign the same SDS to three rooms in building HQ, two rooms on Floor 1 and one room on floor 15. Use the pop-up console to select building HQ, select floors 1 and 15, and click Show. Now you can select the individual rooms in the location grid.

Two-level filtering

With this filter, you can filter by two levels. Suppose that you are assigning liquid nitrogen, and it is manufactured by five different companies. One site might get that product from Manufacturer X and another site uses product from Manufacturer Y. The pop-up filter can be used to find all the liquid nitrogen and you can then select in the Smart Search console just Manufacturer X to make the assignments to location A. Next, you can clear the console filter and select only Manufacturer Y for the location B assignments.

Both the SDS and the Location pop-up consoles provide select value dialogs. If you are unsure what to type in the Smart Search console, you can use the pop-up console to select a value from the list.

Step 2: Review the products for a location

You may want to see all the products already entered for a particular location You can do so using the Show Assignments at Selected Locations button. Those assignments will appear in the grid at the bottom of the screen. For example:

• See all products for a locations: You can select a room and then see all the products associated with this room. Checking what products are already present at a location may be important for ensuring that you do not overload a particular location with too many substances, and also that you do not store at the same location substances that should not interact with each other. To do so, select a location and then choose the Show Assignments at Selected Locations button
• See all locations for a product: You can select a product in the left pane, such as WD-40 aerosol, leave the location fields blank, click the Show Assignments at Selected Locations button, and the system will list all locations that have WD-40 assigned to them.
• See particular products at particular locations: Complete both panes to see the particular products at particular locations.

Step 3: Assign products to locations and optionally equipment

1. Select the products.

   Use the SDS consoles to display the SDSs that you want to assign to locations. From this list, select individual SDSs by clicking in the check box next to the SDS. Select all of the displayed SDSs by clicking the select all box in the column heading.

2. Select the locations with which to associate an SDS.

   Use the Location consoles to display the desired locations. From this list, select individual locations by selecting the check box next to the location. Select all of the displayed locations by selecting the check box in the column heading. You can locate a product container at any level of the hierarchy -- from site all the way down to shelf. Typically, you will want to document the exact location of extremely hazardous products so that you know exactly where to find them in the event of an emergency. For more information on locations within the room, see Define Subroom Locations.

3. Select equipment with which to associate an SDS (optional). Note that the Locations panel also includes the equipment found in that room. Thus, if there are multiple equipment items in the room, a record for each equipment item and an overall record for the room are both shown. Since certain equipment is associated with SDSs, you can use this feature to tie the SDS directly to the equipment item located with the room.

   For example, a printer may use a cartridge that is considered to be hazardous. You can associate the cartridge's SDS with the specific printer within a room by choosing the record listing the printer. The following steps illustrate how to do this using the HQ sample data.

   Example steps:

   1. Filter the Locations list to show all items within room HQ-19-111; this includes three Equipment records and a record for the room.
   2. Assign the printer cartridge SDS to the printer by selecting the cartridge SDS in the left pane and the printer in room HQ-19-111 in the right pane; click Assign to Selected Locations. The bottom pane shows that the printer in room HQ-19-111 is now associated with the printer cartridge SDS.
      
      
      
4. Assign the SDS to locations or equipment within locations.

   Once you select the SDS and the locations, you are ready to make the assignments. Click Assign to Selected Locations, and the system assigns all of the selected SDSs to the selected locations. This result will be displayed in the grid on the bottom of the form.

   Note: If you want an SDS assigned to an entire floor, use the Smart Search console filter to isolate that particular floor; select the check box at the top of the column to select all rooms; then click "Assign to Selected Locations."

5. Enter details about the products at these location.

   After you have assigned the product to one or more locations, you can add details about the product. After you execute step 4 above, the Location Assignment panel (the bottom panel) will list all the locations that have this product assignment. You can now apply the same set of details to all of these records:

   • Choose the check boxes for the records that you just added or choose the Select All check box in the smart search filter. If a set of values applies only to a certain group of records, select the check boxes for just those records.
   • Click Edit Selected Details to access the Define Material Location Details form (pictured below).
   • Complete the fields of the Define Material Location Details form. For information on the fields, see Field Reference later in this topic.
   • Click Apply to Selected Location Assignments to apply these values to the selected records and exit the Define Material Location Details form.
     
     

   Repeat this process as necessary to record the details for all products at all locations. For example, if all information except Custodian is the same for the product at all locations, you can select all records and follow the above procedure, being sure to leave Custodian blank. You can then go back to complete the Custodian field for each set of records for which the custodian is the same.

   Note: It is not possible to assign more than one container type to a location. If you need to segregate the location data by container type, create separate SDSs for each container type and assign each of those SDSs to the location.

   Note: There is one caution with this type of multiple assignment capability: it is possible to view dissimilar products in the Location Assignments grid. If you select multiple products that are different, and attempt to edit their details, you will receive a warning.

To edit a product at its location

1. Use the filter to locate it in the bottom pane.
2. Click the Edit Selected Details button, which presents the Define Material Location Details form.

Note: If you assigned a material to a room using the floor plan, you could specify the location only to the room level. If you wish to specify aisles, cabinets, shelves, or bins you can edit these items using the Define Material Location Details form

To remove a product from a location:

1. Select the product in the SDS frame.

   Use the SDS consoles to display the products of interest. If needed, refine the selection by selecting individual products (click in the check box next to the SDS), or select all of the displayed products by clicking the check box in the column heading.

2. Select the locations.

   Use the Locations consoles to display the desired locations. You can refine the selection by selecting individual locations (click in the check box next to the location), or select all of the displayed locations by clicking the select all box in the column heading.

3. Remove SDS location assignments.

   Display the SDSs assigned to the selected locations by clicking Show Assignments at Selected Locations. Those assignments will appear in the grid at the bottom of the screen. Select the locations from which to remove the SDS and click Unassign Selected.

Field reference