Life Sciences EH&S Community Blog

10 Tips to a Successful Chemical Inventory Launch

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by Denise Hutchins, Executive Director

Launching a chemical inventory program can be a daunting task but has many long-term benefits. You can access up-to-date information for your fire department in case of an emergency or regulatory inspection; can keep track expired chemicals such as peroxide formers for safety and compliance; streamline purchasing and increase chemical sharing. A chemical inventory program will also enable you to track and manage quantities of specific chemicals stored at your facility, making it easier to generate reports such as the Tier II or comply with regulatory thresholds such as the STQs on the DHS Appendix A list. You can even easily generate a report to ensure that you are below your flammable storage limits. But you know all of this right?

Here's 10 tips on how to get started:

1. Setup a team of stakeholders (IT, lab, purchasing, EH&S, shipping)
2. Establish current chemical flow and inventory process
3. Define your organization's specifications - bar coding, MSDS' - and review multiple programs discussing data migration if you have an existing system
4. Define your system setup - room names, shelves, departments, hoods, floors
5. Brainstorm new chemical flow including departmental integration and responsible parties leading to success and sustainability
6. Discuss your initial launch resources - internal only, internal & external, all external
7. Run a test to see ease of use and work out any bugs
8. Train
9. Launch
10. Train
    

Of course, there are a few more steps in between but this road map can get you started on the road to project success.