MSDS management has become an extreme burden for both the end-users of the products that require MSDSs and the manufacturers and distributors that produce and distribute chemical-based products. A recent study on organizations in the United States exhibited an excessive amount of waste in the methods and procedures for controlling material safety data sheets. In fact, the study showed that US organizations spent in excess of two billion dollars annually on MSDS related management issues. This is a significant problem. So why hasn’t someone come up with a solution?
There have been many attempts in the past to come up with a consistent way to handle the MSDS management issue. Let’s review some of these ways and why they failed.

First, software developers (such as us) have declared that if everyone just used the same MSDS management program, then the MSDSs could be transferred electronically from the manufacturer to the end-user. That was a great conceptual idea, however, trying to get thousands of chemical manufacturers and distributors that create and distribute the MSDS documents to change the software programs that they use to author the MSDS documents is not even remotely possible.

Second, there is the central repository theory. The idea behind this concept is to have a collection of every MSDS from every manufacturer on the Internet or database system to be emailed or faxed to the end-user. Then you would simply need to do an Internet search or call a phone service and request the MSDS. This sounds like a good idea, so why did it fail? There are two reasons why this concept has failed. Reason one: There are thousands of manufacturers producing MSDSs and there are literally millions of unique MSDSs. It would take an incredible amount of time to collect, sort, de-dupe, and enter the MSDSs into the central repository and it would take the cooperation of thousands of manufacturers. This will never happen. Reason two: Even if this feat was somehow accomplished it would not meet OSHA’s compliance regulations. Why? Because there would be no way to retrieve the exact MSDSs for that organization. OSHA requires that you have MSDS documents for the specific products that you had in the past and have in the present. MSDS documents go through numerous revisions as the product’s ingredients are changed by the manufacturer for various reasons. If you have an MSDS for a cleaner that went through three product revisions over the course of five years, then just having the most recent MSDS will not keep you in compliance. If you attempted to retrieve an MSDS for a product, you will either receive just the most updated revision or a listing of all the MSDS revisions for the product. Which is the correct revision? There is almost no way to determine the correct MSDS after the fact. Another problem with this type of system is that they provide too much information. Try finding an MSDS for a cleaner, you would receive a listing of hundreds or possibly thousands.

So the question remains: Is there a solution? We think there is. Since it is impossible to convince all of the manufacturers to develop a consistent electronic MSDS document, then there must be a tool to handle a variety of electronic MSDS formats. That is why Safetec Software has created a document technology called MSDS Wizard as a core development tool for MSDS management software. This technology enables software programs, such as our MSDS Scan Wizard and MSDS Enterprise Server, to import many types of electronic documents. Currently, the software can manage scanned images, Adobe PDF files, and many types of text-based documents. The problem still remains of how the manufacturer or distributor will send the MSDS to their customers. This can easily be accomplished through email.

The Internet and email are quickly becoming a standard in business today much like the fax machine became a standard in the eighties. In the next few years, virtually every business will have Internet and email capability. Currently, most manufacturers have developed systems as part of their order processing systems to create a printed MSDS document for shipment with their products. What needs to be changed with these systems is relatively simple. Instead of printing a paper MSDS document, an electronic MSDS document will be sent via email to the customer. This can quickly become a reality if the customer is using a software program with the MSDS Wizard technology that can import the attached email document. This allows the manufacturers and distributors to use a variety of electronic management systems (such as in-house custom programs to off-the-shelf applications, like our MSDS Scan Wizard) to provide you, the customer, with an electronic document.

As the use of email grows, more organizations will request electronic MSDS documents from their suppliers. Manufacturers and distributors will also begin emailing MSDS documents instead of sending paper copies due to the decrease in costs of using electronic documents. Eventually, all MSDS documents will be provided electronically. By partnering with Safetec as your complete resource for MSDS management, you will be on the cutting edge of this eventual development and integration.

Safetec has also developed software products and services to assist manufacturers and distributors with this process. Safetec is also quickly developing relationships with Value-Added Resellers (VARS), consultants, and system integrators to help make this a reality.