ChemSW’s White Paper on best practices for managing laboratory chemical inventory

Citation

(2009), "ChemSW’s White Paper on best practices for managing laboratory chemical inventory", Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials, Vol. 56 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/acmm.2009.12856eab.009

ChemSW’s White Paper on best practices for managing laboratory chemical inventory

Article Type: Environment and safety From: Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials, Volume 56, Issue 5

ChemSW, Inc. announced the release of a revised and greatly expanded version of their ground-breaking White Paper detailing best practices in chemical inventory management. An industry first, this White Paper provides insights into leveraging industry best practices when implementing a chemical inventory system to help ensure system adoption and successful incorporation into lab processes. The updated and expanded version provides greater detail concerning key emerging technologies and the latest industry practices.

Companies that utilize chemicals in their labs and their manufacturing processes must manage those chemicals in a safe environment in accordance with government regulations. At a minimum, to ensure that this is accomplished, a system for managing information about the chemical safety and quality data should be established and maintained. Best practices, on the other hand, take this minimum and leverage the management of the chemical inventory by leveraging the abilities of the people, processes, and technology involved to best effect. This White Paper delves into the best practices involved in managing chemical inventory to achieve the most effective, holistic chemical inventory system.

Entitled “Best practices for managing laboratory chemical inventory,” the White Paper examines the reasons why systems fail and why they succeed, as well as the true costs associated with chemical inventory management and cost savings that result when such a system is optimized for maximum effectiveness.

The revised and expanded version now available provides greater detail about estimating chemical inventory activity costs; building blocks to best practices; and, fire code reporting issues; as well as the ins and outs of outsourcing chemical inventory management to chemical management services and SaaS vendors. In particular, the new section covering outsourcing alternatives discusses the pros and cons of such solutions, what to expect and how to evaluate them. Since SaaS solutions are so new in this field, the characteristics and capabilities of such a solution as well as the components of best-of-breed SaaS software is discussed in depth.

Numerous local, state and federal requirements have been promulgated to protect workers, equipment, facilities and the environment from the hazards associated with chemicals. Since such requirements can number in the thousands, simply identifying all of the applicable chemical safety-related requirements that govern any particular work activity with chemicals can be a monumental task. In addition, many of these requirements approach chemical safety from different perspectives, contain overlapping provisions, are sometimes contradictory, and often confusing.

A series of best practices activity-based checklists that govern chemical-related work activities – with overlap and duplication of requirements removed – have been developed and provided to assist in chemical management audits.

The White Paper is free and can be visited at: www.chemsw.com/lt906abp.htm