When a lab’s compliance is reliant on paperwork, nothing is more challenging than having to store, track and manage countless SDS documentation. This is especially true when the lab you are running houses tens of thousands of chemicals. When each one of the documents holds key information about each chemical in the lab, it is easy to see why these documents are crucial to be present within the lab.
In comes in the Safety Data Sheets (SDS). These critical pieces of lab documentation are paramount to maintaining a good set of lab safety practices, yet each one comes with many pages of important health and safety information on these chemicals. Multiply this by the number of chemicals a lab contains, and now we are looking at a large filing cabinet parked in the corner of an office with just this information, or a rather large binder that is cumbersome to move around and navigate. What happens when each lab room needs their own binder?
Bringing this challenge to the modern day sees lab workers digitizing all their SDS paperwork. No longer are lab workers digging for or lugging around that large binder taking up space in the corner of the lab or having to run to the SDS drawer. Having to manually thumb through pages and pages of SDS documentation in hopes of landing on the page describing details on whether the chemical currently on fire in front of them can be put out with water or not is a less-than-ideal scenario. By utilizing a digital SDS catalog, lab members and EHS members alike can effortlessly navigate an extensive compendium of SDS data for all chemicals owned by the company, let alone found in a room.
Lab workers who are leveraging this technology can easily access their catalogs and use robust search functions to home in on whatever chemical or compound they need data on. With all the SDS data in digital form, you never run the risk of losing critical SDS paperwork to an overzealous cleaning crew, or a spill prone lab worker. When a lab member needs to quickly find details on proper storage practices, they only need to access their computer and navigate to their CMS systems that house all their companies SDS data to look up what they need to know.
Pushing the digital access one step further by bringing smartphones into the mix, we can now use QR codes to gain no-login access to a labs SDS data allowing lab members or EHS personnel access to critical safety information on the contents of the lab. With the extensive library of Safety Data sheet data at a lab member’s fingertip, having to manually navigate through countless documents is no longer the only option.
Bringing SDS management to the digital realm will give lab workers peace of mind that any information they will need about a certain chemical or compound that they are working with is a click or QR scan away. This is just one of a multitude of reasons that bring most aspects of a lab’s chemical management systems to digital platform.
AUTHOR BIO:-
Manolo Hernandez has been with SafetyStratus since 2022 and has brought his degree in chemistry from California University of Pennsylvania to the team to bring knowledge and experience about chemical safety and general lab practices.
He worked for an environmental lab for a few years learning about asbestos and polarized light microscopy giving him a specialized insight on construction details. Manolo also has a passion for theater and arts giving him great joy to always watch and put on a captivating performance. Other hobbies include karaoke, escape rooms and baking.
