3 Challenges to Chemical Inventory and SDS Management – and how to improve it

Keeping on top of your chemical inventory may seem easy – buy a chemical, record that chemical, track how much is used, and if someone asks about that chemical you have a record to answer their questions.

Many companies struggle with tracking what chemicals are on hand and soon the whole system falls apart. What about tracking all those SDSs that come along with chemicals purchased. Who is managing those records and keeping them up to date? No one quite knows what chemicals are on site, what chemicals are being used, and what chemicals need to be tossed. Here are three common challenges businesses often run into when it comes to chemical inventory and SDS Management: 

1. No Central Place to Manage Safety Data Sheets

Your chemical inventory system depends on people actually using it and recording all the chemicals that are purchased. With multiple buyers of chemicals, there are chemicals entering your worksites from multiple sources – and no central way to record what has been purchased or central place to add a Safety Data Sheet.

2. No Visibility to Chemical Inventory Levels

If people cannot find what has been purchased – workers will keep buying more. If there is no reliable system to find information on chemicals or SDSs – then more products will get ordered to ensure the chemicals required are on hand for the job. Because no one knows what you already have – everyone keeps buying more.

If your researchers and staff don’t have visibility into chemical inventory levels or don’t trust the numbers they see, they will most likely order more. It’s the path of least resistance and it guarantees they’ll have the materials they need. 

3. Unreliable Data

Data on your chemical inventory keeps growing and becoming more unreliable. Who is going to step up and volunteer to do the laborious process of manually counting what chemicals are on hand? By the time you finish taking inventory of your chemicals, your data will be out of date.

Streamline Your SDS & Chemical Inventory Management with sdsBinders

Implementing a chemical inventory management process can help your bottom line and support compliance at the same time. The biggest hurdle is ensuring chemicals and SDSs are being recorded in a timely fashion and updated accordingly. An online product like sdsBinders can keep track of your chemicals and SDSs in one place and ensure compliance for customers with a service that keeps the SDSs up to date.

Interested in learning more about sdsBinders? Contact Chemscape Safety Technologies today to book a demo.