Safety Data Sheet (SDS)
The SDS provides information on the hazards, protective measures, accident procedures, handling and transport instructions, as well as other important data of the corresponding chemical product. A SDS is required by law for commercial products.
In a company that uses or sells chemical products, a safety officer is responsible on behalf of the employer for the correct handling of the potentially hazardous products. Employees must be properly instructed in the correct handling of the products. The basis of the instruction is the internally or externally prepared SDS.
Responsibility
The manufacturer of the product is responsible for the preparation of the SDS. In Switzerland, any importer is considered to be the responsible manufacturer. All sellers (distributors) along the supply chain are responsible for the delivery. As in any other country, the country-specific information for Switzerland must be added. This includes the responsible manufacturer/importer, Swiss emergency information, any specific Swiss limits (see SUVA), restrictions such as mother and youth protection or other information according to Swiss legislation.
Often, companies question whether they can internally provide the know-how and time to create correct SDSs, because it requires a lot of experience and on the way from a white sheet of paper to a finished SDS, there are various tasks and hurdles for the safety officer to overcome.
First of all, the given regulations have to be found, read and understood. Since regulations are mostly long legal texts, this is often the first major hurdle for a chemist. For this purpose, we have compiled a list of the important and valid regulations under “Legal regulations”. We update this list on an ongoing basis.
SAFIN software supports you
Many of these regulations are already implemented in our standard software SAFIN and significantly increase the productivity of the SDS creator. When the manual calculation of a GHS classification with several components soon becomes a Herculean task, the SAFIN “Expert” module handles this calculation with ease, taking into account the current legislation and the harmonized classifications according to ECHA. Working time is freed up for optimizing the formulation of the product or for doing other work with more added value.
With contextual standard phrases in all 16 chapters of the SDS, SAFIN facilitates the preparation of REACH- or GHS-compliant safety data sheets and exposure scenarios. A complete ADR database for transport classifications (road/air/sea) as well as comprehensive databases of many different countries for individual SDS sections complete our SAFIN product.
Once created in SAFIN, the SDS with the standard sentences can be translated into approx. 40 languages. Of course, you can also add your own sentences and translations.
Would you prefer to receive the SDS as a service?
This is also no problem for I+K AG, we are happy to create SDS in many different languages as a customer order. We can also guarantee high quality with our many years of experience and profound expertise. Due to our attractive pricing, this option is particularly interesting for customers with small and medium product ranges. See further information.
Distribution of SDS to the customer
Your company’s obligation to provide information does not end until the SDS prepared in the correct language has reached your customer. SAFIN offers two basic options here:
- The data and documents remain in the SAFIN Cloud and can be retrieved by the customer via a QR link or a search text.
- You download the created SDS as Word or PDF file and save it in your system for further distribution.
In both cases, the responsibility is well regulated: The expert creates the SDS with his knowledge and experience and with our electronic tools. Only he has direct write access to the data in SAFIN.