Chemical Safety Data Sheet and Manifest program? Aka Chemwatch is trash

plufim

This... may be a tad niche for this forum, but many workplaces have a chemical manifest, so it's likely there's other people here who deal with this.

Currently our workplace uses what the vast majority use: Chemwatch. Over the past few years we've had constant issues with them, from the wrong sheets being linked together, sheets not being updated, sheets that are updated being done incorrectly, and sheets flat out disappearing with manifest entries no longer linking to an actual pdf.

Most recently, and in some ways, a final straw if I had enough sway: they rejected uploading a Safety Data Sheet claiming it was not actually a Safety Data Sheet. If you're going to get at least 1 thing right, it has to be that!

Have other users had the same issues, and had any luck swapping to a different supplier?

This is the biggest name in the game, and they're vastly cheaper than any competitors. But the quality of service is shockingly poor.

Skeith

Biggest question for me is, does management recognize that this is an issue that could get your company nailed to a wall by OSHA? If they do (or you're management), I think the best place to sound people out would be other people in the same sort of industry.

plufim

Tried that: they all use Chemwatch. I'm trying.g multiple vectors, but I thought hey, worldwide audience here, might be something I'd not heard of.

I'm making a case to management to change, but part of that is finding a viable alternative

zepherin

Sunk cost mentality. The company paid a non trivial amount of money and integrated chemwatch into their system. They are not likely to change systems.

Without that buy in, then you’d need to do it manually to be sure (upload correct pdf, print a copy and send it out, essentially work around the automation). And that would be a lot of effort on your end. In my industry I used to be able to keep an SDS book with the drivers and ones with the sites and that met requirements.

Gilgaron

I checked and we use chemwatch too but other than having the safety officers also keep binders physically near the labs with vendor MSDS in it I doubt you'll find much impetus to move from an inexpensive industry standard. Even when they suck the industry standard applications tend to get a pass from auditors so you'll need to approach it from a safety/liability standpoint.

plufim

Yep, it's what I figured!

LostNinja

My company uses Infotrac. It’s handled by a different branch of the business, but I’m not aware of any issues with it.

I can’t speak to how difficult it is for that team to manage but I believe it’s fairly passive aside from the the intake of new chemicals.

plufim

Thanks, will check that out!