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Environmental & Risk Management / Hazardous Materials / Manage Material Inventory

Define Hazardous Materials

Typically, a safety manager is responsible for inventorying the products located on a site and entering their SDS information into the system. Recording the SDS information is vital for complying with government regulations and providing a safe working environment.

As you complete the SDS information, you will be required to choose values from validating lists. For example, you may need to select a component chemical, its manufacturer, and its hazard classification. If you find that the system does not offer you the appropriate values from which to choose, you have two possible actions.

• For your convenience, certain fields provide an Add New button so that you can create new validating values as needed. In this case, you will want to later go back to the appropriate task in the Business Process Owner - Hazmat process to complete the remainder of the information.
• For fields that do not offer the quick-add feature, contact your safety manager or other appropriate personnel. They can use the Business Process Owner - Hazmat process to develop this data.

Understanding the Scope of the ARCHIBUS SDS System

While the ARCHIBUS SDS system stores many key characteristics of a hazardous product, it does not store all the information that is found on the SDS issued by the manufacturer. For example, the ARCHIBUS system does not store first aid procedures, storage and handling requirements, fire-fighting procedures, transportation requirements, disposal procedures, and toxicological information. Instead, the ARCHIBUS SDS application focuses on storing SDS data required for sorting, classifying, filtering, and retrieving SDSs, as well as providing summary analytics on the products. This information enables the ARCHIBUS user to search the electronic inventory of SDSs and find the record they need. Once they locate the ARCHIBUS SDS record, they can access the complete SDS with these methods:

• use the record’s link to the PDF of the SDS stored on the manufacturer’s web site
• use the ARCHIBUS document system to access a PDF of the manufacturer's SDS.

If your site wants to track additional SDS details in the ARCHIBUS SDS system, they can customize the forms presented by the Define Materials and Safety Data Sheets (SDS) task.

The Define Materials and Safety Data Sheets (SDS)  Task

To add or edit SDS information, select the Hazardous Materials/ Manage Material Inventory / Define Materials and Safety Data Sheets (SDS) task, which presents a tab-based console for entering SDS data. Work through the tabs to enter your SDS information:

• Entering Basic Information (Identification tab)
• Entering the Associated SDS Document (Document tab)
• Entering the Hazard Classification (Hazard Classification tab)
• Entering the Product Ingredients (Constituent tab)
• Entering the Physical Properties (Physical Properties tab)

The absolute minimum data required for saving an SDS record is the Product Name and the Manufacturer on the Identification tab. However, to be most useful, you would use the Documents tab to check into the ARCHIBUS document system the manufacturer-provided SDS document.

Searching for Materials

It is likely that there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of SDSs in the system. Even when you are adding a new SDS, it is a good practice to first search for it to make sure it's not already in the system. The Filter console is convenient for finding an SDS or group of SDSs.

In the console, all search criteria have a selection dialog accessed with the [...] button. The selection lists for the three fields shown below are limited to values that are entered for an existing SDS and are present in the SDS table. So, if you are searching for a material and it's not listed in the selection list for Product Name, it has not yet been entered into the system. You can use any of the following fields to see if an existing SDS uses them.

• GHS Product Identifier
• Product Name
• Chemical Name

The remaining selection lists are derived from reference data developed in the background data tables. So, even if company XYZ is shown in the Manufacturer selection list, there may or may not be SDSs associated with that manufacturer.

The console search is not case-sensitive. When you enter multiple search criteria, the SDS is shown in the SDS list only if it matches all the criteria you enter. See Using the Filter Console.

For example, suppose the health and safety manager needs to review and update all of the SDSs assigned to a particular floor in a building. The safety manager could enter the building and floor code and click Show at the top of the console. The system displays SDSs matching those criteria in the grid below the console.

Entering Basic Material Information (Identification Tab)

The Identification tab presents basic information about the chemical. All of the data listed in this tab is found in "Section 1: Chemical Product and Company Identification" of typical SDS forms. Each of the fields is described in the table below.

The Manufacturer, Distributor, and Preparer fields (which are all validated by the Companies table) have a special feature that makes entering data more efficient: they include an Add New button so that you can enter a new company directly from this form. If the list of validating companies does not include the company that you need, use the Add New button to enter it and click Save. You can now choose this new record to complete the field. With this quick-add feature, you complete only a few fields. It is a good practice to later go back to the Define Companies task to complete the remainder of the company information.

Enter as much information as you can so that others will be able to find this record when searching for it.

When the data entry is complete, you can use the Save button to save this data and then move to another tab. If you wish to quickly enter only basic information for multiple products at once, use the "Save and Add New" button to save the data and then clear the form so that you can enter a new product.

Note: If your site works with the ARCHIBUS Hazardous Materials mobile app, you may want to create a placeholder SDS record for situations when the auditor finds a material in the field for which an SDS record does not exist. Since auditors cannot create an SDS record from mobile, they need a way of indicating that they found a material that does not have an SDS defined in the system. To address this situation, you can create a placeholder SDS and name it "Undocumented." When auditors find a material in the field for which an SDS does not exist, they can choose the "Undocumented" record, enter quantity and other information that they observe, and use the Comments field to record the product name, manufacturer, and other important information. When the data is uploaded to the Web Central system, a safety manager can search the Environmental & Risk Management / Hazardous Materials / Material Inventory Exceptions report for the "Undocumented" items. They can then create the necessary SDS records to fully document these products and update the "Undocumented" records with the new SDS information.

Entering Associated SDS Documents (Document Tab)

Use the Documents tab to associate the manufacturer-issued SDS with this product by registering it in the ARCHIBUS document management system. For information, see Using the Document Management System.

Associating your electronic SDS record with the SDS provided by the manufacturer is a vital step. The ARCHIBUS SDS system does not electronically track all the data typically provided by the manufacturer on their SDS. By uploading the SDS document and providing the URL link, you are enabling users to access the complete SDS document.

Since an SDS may exist on line, or was sent to you as a hard copy, there are two ways to associate documents with the SDS:

Manufacturer's URL

If the SDS is available on the manufacturer's web site, you can enter the URL in the SDS Source URL field, click Save, and then click the Download button. The system captures the SDS document and stores it in the ARCHIBUS document management system. You will see the document name listed in the Document field. After the download has completed, it is a good practice to select the Show Document icon to verify that the document is accessible.

Manual Upload

If you have a paper copy of the SDS, you will need to scan the document and save it electronically (PDF is a common format for saving scanned documents). Other sources of SDS documents might be Word files or text files. Once you have an electronic copy of the SDS, navigate to the Document tab and click on the Check In New Document button, next to the Document field. Browse to the location of the electronic copy of the SDS, fill in the version comments (optional), and click on OK. It is a good practice at this point to select Show Document to make sure the document is accessible.

See Using the Document Management System.

The following are the fields on the Document tab.

Entering the Hazard Classification (Hazard Classification Tab)

With the Hazard Classification tab, you can associate one or more hazard classifications with the product. Since a product can be classified by more than one system (such as by both GHS and a fire protection association), you can enter multiple classifications per product.

When you select the Hazard Classification tab, the system displays all hazard categories assigned to the currently selected SDS.

Click on "Add New" to assign a new category. You can assign the system, class, and category in the hierarchy sequence, or you can go straight to the selection dialog for the category. In this case, when you select the category ARCHIBUS automatically completes the system and class fields based on the category you select.

To add new or edit existing classifications, you need to go to the Define Hazard Classifications task under the Business Process Owner - Hazmat process.

Entering the Product Ingredients (Constituent Tab)

On a typical manufacturer-supplied SDS, the "Composition / Information on Ingredients" section provides information about the chemicals that make up the product being documented in the SDS. Constituent information is needed for chemical inventory reporting and can be very helpful in an emergency situation to determine potential hazards.

Note that in order to add a constituent chemical to the SDS, the item must already be included in the chemical list that is typically maintained with the Business Process Owner - Hazmat/Define Chemicals task. However, the Constituent field has a convenient "Add New" button so that you can add a missing chemical directly from this form. To do so, click "Add New," complete the fields, and click Save. You can now select the new item as a constituent of the SDS.

When you use Add New, only the Constituent and Percentage information is added. To enter additional details for the chemical such as the Tier II Classification or the CAS Number, you would use the Business Process Owner for SDS / Define Chemicals task.

When you first select the tab, it displays the constituents that have already been assigned to the SDS. To add a new constituent, click Add New, and select the chemical from the selection dialog box. You can enter the exact percentage of this component as part of the overall product; for example, if two percent of the product is composed of Florine, enter 2 in the Percent - Maximum or Actual field. In some cases, you may wish to enter a more general amount using the range or the "less than" or "greater than" operators.

Entering the Physical Properties (Physical Properties Tab)

The Physical and Chemical Properties section of a typical manufacturer-supplied SDS contains important information about the physical properties of the product. For a particular property, you can enter its value in the following formats:

• Range -- If you choose this operator, the system displays a field for entering the low number of the range.
• Greater than
• Less tan
• Equal To

Similarly, for some properties, you can enter the units, such as percentage of overall product or pounds per gallon. The exact options depend on the property.