Page 12 - OHS, January/February 2022

IH: CHEMICAL SAFETY
Five Ways Software Strengthens Chemical Safety and IH Programs
Now is the time to make a compelling and well-rounded business case for implementing IH software in your organization.
BY PHIL MOLÉ
The number of in-house industrial hygiene (IH) professionals has dwindled in recent years, with more and more businesses downsizing or eliminating their in-house IH professionals and relying on EHS generalists and third-party consultants to manage their IH programs. As IH program budgets tighten, it is becoming increasingly critical that IH practitioners can make a strong business case for their IH programs so that they can compete successfully for limited resources.
Fortunately, the number of software options available to help businesses more easily manage their IH needs has increased in response to these challenges. The best solutions available can help you cut through the time and complexity of your most important tasks, enabling you to maintain a world-class program and have real-time visibility and reporting into your most important activities— regardless of how much or how little IH background you already have.
A great example of the ability of software to bolster IH is in the management of chemicals. Proper chemical management is a critical component of a solid IH program, even if many organizations
fall short. Hazard Communication has ranked second or third on OSHA’s annual list of its standards with the most frequent violations for more than a decade, pointing to systemic chemical management issues that undermine the effectiveness of IH programs and place workers at risk.
As we enter a new year, now is the time to make a compelling and well- rounded business case for implementing IH software in your organization. Let us look at five ways software can strengthen your IH program, improve chemical management and protect the safety of your workforce.
Chemical Inventory
and Ingredients Tracking
Everything starts with knowing what chemicals you have in the workplace. It is the key to drafting an accurately written HazCom plan, ensuring you have all necessary safety data sheets (SDSs) for the chemicals in your inventory, effectively managing workplace labels, training your employees on chemical hazards and meeting regulatory responsibilities.
Yet, just knowing what chemical products you have is not enough. You also need visibility into the ingredients of
those products, along with their specific hazards and regulatory considerations. Take methylene chloride, for example, a common ingredient in aerosol degreasing sprays and paint-removing solvents. Facility managers are often unaware it is present in their facilities because the names of the products don’t provide any obvious clues. If you do not know you have methylene chloride, it is unlikely that your IH program includes exposure monitoring for it, which leaves you out of compliance with OSHA’s methylene chloride standard.
Chemical management software can help you avoid this issue by tracking chemicals by container at the company, facility, department and even storage level. Some software even gives you visual insight into of your chemical footprint with drag-and-drop controls that allow you to instantly identify, move and manage your chemical inventory on an image map of your facility. The most robust software solutions feature ingredient indexing to help you track chemical ingredients across products while flagging those that are subject to more stringent regulatory standards.
A well-rounded IH solution takes even more work out of the process by supplying a built-in database of Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) Registry Numbers and associated Occupational Exposure Limits (OELs). This information is vital to setting up and keeping an IH sampling program. Employees armed with the tools described above are more empowered to make their workplaces safer, which is essential as IH increasingly becomes a shared responsibility.
Creating and Maintaining
Your IH Sampling Plan
It should hopefully be obvious that having a complete and current chemical inventory list is a major prerequisite to putting together your sampling plan. It is certainly an obvious point to inspectors, who will ask which chemicals have been
12 Occupational Health & Safety | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022
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