City of Santa Ana Moves from Paper-Based MSDS Management System to Safetec’s Comprehensive Solution
About:
The City of Santa Ana, California, Orange County’s government powerbase, governs a population of over 368,000 and employs over 2,000 people. In 2010, Santa Ana decided to eliminate its paper and binder MSDS management system and move to a comprehensive chemical data management solution.
Challenge:
The City’s chemical document collection was unaligned with actual chemicals on-site, making it difficult for City staff to know and control the hazards of the chemicals they were using. Compliance was also tough to maintain as MSDS documents were often not acquired, maintained or archived properly.
Solution:
Santa Ana looked for a combination of technology and customer service when they evaluated chemical data management. Having used an automated MSDS Management system before joining the City of Santa Ana as the Facilities, Fleet, and Central Stores Manager, Rick Longobart understood the importance of customer support when evaluating his options. Rick expressed, “support is the most critical component of a solution; it is needed from the system’s conception to its implementation as well as for training and updates.”
Safetec was selected to become Santa Ana’s chemical management solution provider because the City found Safetec to be the industry leader in both technology and customer support.
Results:
Safetec personnel proficiently and accurately assumed MSDS and facility data management responsibilities, freeing up constrained City resources, streamlining inventory management, and improving safety and compliance. Rick Longobart, Santa Ana’s Fleet and Stores Manager, states, “the user-friendly system, coupled with excellent customer support, allows for quick and accurate insight into the chemical products the City is dealing with, making inventory management a breeze.”
The City of Santa Ana also found value in Safetec’s emergency response services. Rick expressed how “the 24/7 service provides reassurance that any document can be received by an employee during an emergency without being confined to a computer.”
After utilizing Safetec’s technology platform and services for a number of months, Santa Ana hired Safetec’s technicians to perform an On-site Inventory (OSI). Santa Ana’s staff knew its MSDS collection was unaligned with what chemicals were actually on-site, their paper and binder MSDS management system was ineffective and a physical inventory audit had never been performed. Rick chose to outsource the task because, “the expertise of the company (Safetec) ensured us the quality of the count would be more accurate than attempting to count it using in-house staff that did not have the expertise in chemical management.”
Longobart was very pleased with the outcome, reporting that the work was completed within hours and the data was very accurate. MSDSs for products no longer in use were successfully archived in the Safetec system, helping Santa Ana’s compliance with OSHA’s 30-year archival rule. Santa Ana’s compliance level before the OSI was approximately 46%, meaning they were missing MSDSs for over half of their products. With help from Safetec, Santa Ana’s compliance level soon soared up to 100%.
