Page 60 - Occupational Health & Safety, May 2018

CHEMICAL SAFETY/SDS
We’ve all been on site and found chemical products that no one seems to know how they got there. With technology, you can ensure everyone follows the same process for requesting chemicals.
Mobility and IoT
Today, we are more connected than ever, thanks to mobile devices. Paper and pen inspections, assessments, and audits are quickly disappearing and being completed with tablets and smartphones. Safety and IH professionals are leveraging wearable technologies to gain insight into how work is being done and what the conditions are like in near real-time, which is empower- ing them to work with operations to adjust processes to improve employee health and well-being and reduce the risks of injuries or, worse, fatalities. IoT also provides EHS managers the opportunity to manage as- sets in near real-time to ensure the com- pany is in compliance with regulations and permits.
The mobile-first revolution is making EHS teams more efficient and providing them with more data, which is helping them drive change throughout their orga- nization, reduce incidents, and deliver in- creased value to their organizations. More and more companies are now realizing the value of their EHS teams and the role they play in achieving operational excellence.
Summing it Up
EHS professionals are keenly aware of the risks that poor chemical management programs present to employees and the environment. Leveraging technology to centralize and standardize chemical man- agement programs is a key component to successfully protecting employees, com- munities, and the environment from the unintended consequences of a chemical release. To safeguard against these risks, it is imperative that EHS teams have the right technologies to manage each program component, communicate with and train employees, measure and evaluate program value to make changes, and drive continu- ous improvement. With the help of mobile and IoT technologies, EHS teams are lead- ing the way to a safer, greener future.
Ian Cohen, MS, is the Product Marketing Manager responsible for Cority’s Environ- mental and Safety initiatives. Previously, he was Cority’s Environmental Product Manager, where he was responsible for developing Cority’s Environmental Com- pliance and Data Management Suite. For more information, visit www.cority.com.
on-site chemicals at your organization:
Manage chemical requests
We’ve all been on site and found chemi- cal products that no one seems to know how they got there. With technology, you can ensure that everyone follows the same process for requesting chemicals. This will ensure that industrial hygiene, safety, and environmental team members are able to properly review any health, safety, or envi- ronmental risks and put controls in place prior to the chemical coming on site. This will also enable EHS professionals to com- municate and train employees properly if there is a need.
Deliver and track employee training
Whether it’s done in a classroom or on demand through the web, training employ- ees about EHS compliance requirements is an ongoing process. Having a system in place that can deliver and track training for such things such as proper PPE usage, safe chemical handling, agency reporting, and disposal requirements is paramount to ensuring a safe workplace for all employees and reducing the risks of environmental incidents. Coupled with chemical request and inventory modules, EHS professionals will have an easier time determining who, what, where, when, and how often training has to be done.
Inventory tracking
Knowing what you have on site and how much of it are the first steps to manag- ing EHS compliance. Many regulations dic- tate on-site quantity limits and thresholds for chemicals. Inventory solutions need to be able to speciate chemical products into their constituents to fully comply with reg- ulatory limits and thresholds. It’s important for EHS teams to communicate with op- erations about any product limits to ensure that additional reporting isn’t required or, worse, that plant modifications aren’t need- ed to accommodate an increased amount of a chemical product. Inventory modules tend to be highly configurable and should be able to send out notifications to the team. Useful notifications include:
■ New chemicals are added to the system
■ Inventory levels are updated ■ Limit warnings
■ Waste streams are generated Track and manage waste
A key component for any chemical management program is being able to accurately manage hazardous or univer- sal waste generated during the manufac- turing process. Regulations require that these waste streams be stored properly to prevent spills and labeled so employees can quickly understand health risks. Em- ployees who handle waste will likely need training on proper PPE and incident man- agement. They also may need to partici- pate in your company’s respirator fit test- ing and medical surveillance programs. Having one system that can manage all of these facets holistically will improve the dialogue between operations, industrial hygienists, safety, and environmental pro- fessionals and result in reduced risks and efficiency savings.
Ensure safe working conditions
An EHS professional’s number one priority is to make sure that facilities are safe places for employees. As noted above, employees need to be aware of safety and environmental hazards and be able to de- termine how to minimize or mitigate risks. Leveraging one system to manage risk as- sessments and share information with employees will have a positive impact on injury rates, environmental incidents, em- ployee morale, and, ultimately, the com- pany’s bottom line.
As IH and safety managers are responsi- ble for managing many programs—includ- ing employee medical surveillance, PPE training, respirator fit testing, job hazard/ risk assessments, and hazard communica- tions—they need to be aware of changes to operations, such as process changes or new product formulations, to appropriately ad- just their programs to keep employees safe. Trying to manage all of this with multiple- point solutions, Excel, or paper can lead to increased injuries or illnesses and a break- down in communication.
56 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2018
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