Product safety - how to identify

[dhinsap]

Dear Experts,

I have 3 questions from a customer point of view

1. what is product safety and which kind of products require product safety

2. Do only dangerous goods require product safety?. If yes, what materials can be classified as dangerous goods and what not?

3.How to identify which supplier must send SDS ( for eg I produce a Li-ion rechargable battery and if i procure Lithium from another vendor, how do i identify if this lithium is a dangerous good or not and it must be supplied with a SDS or not.)

Thanks in advance

Regrds

Dhinesh

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

HI Dhinesh,

1. Product Safety -

Manufacturer must ensure, the products wouldn't harm (or) hazard in nature to the customer. Most of the chemical products fall under this.

Couple of Agencies available to monitor the different products -

for ex - http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Regulations-Laws--Standards/Products-Outside-CPSCs-Jurisdiction/

2. Do only dangerous goods require product safety?. If yes, what materials can be classified as dangerous goods and what not?

No, Not only dangerous goods fall under Product safety.

You can make a blind rule in this way - All Dangerous goods fall under product safety. but all Product safety related material may not be the dangerous goods.

In SAP, we are maintaining 2 different indicatorss in material master to differentiate them.

A. Environmentally relevant Indicator - used for Product safety purpose.

B. DG Indicator profile - for DG purpose.

Dangerous goods are classified into nine classes. The material falls under any of the classification, must be considered as DG material.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_goods

3. Decision making on supplier/Vendor SDS - If your client is chemical manufacturer, most of the raw material falls under environmentally relevant.

day by day the regulations are getting stringent, for ex - REACH regulation demands additional informaiton about the product. If you are complied to this regulation, that will be covered most of the other regulations.

google and check for the information about ECHA, EINECS, CAS. Covers european and US regulations. If you know the chemical name/ Number/ Formula about your substance, you can take a decision further.

It's difficult to answer, without knowing about the products - that your client dealing with.

Regards

kamal

[christoph_bergemann · Accepted solution]

Dear Dhinesh

only some add on info to explanations of Kamal:

Part of products safety are processes like generaiotnof safety data sheet and distributing that

If you take a look here:

http://help.sap.com/erp2005_ehp_06/helpdata/en/a7/288aa30a6c11d28a220000e829fbbd/frameset.htm

EHS SAF contains e.g. Bill of Material Transfer, Substance Volume tracking and Global Label Management

http://help.sap.com/erp2005_ehp_06/helpdata/en/de/5174db4c4b11d18a110000e816ae6e/frameset.htm

explains module EHS-DGP (Dangerous Goods Process)

Generally some "hints" regarding your topic 3:

I most cases you will work as a consultant. Therefore with in a EHS project the "business" will define what they need. You as the consultant will explain how EHS can be enhanced/adapted etc.  to fulfill the demand

Therefore the "legal" aspect is normally out of scope of your work (but required in most cases to understand the "business").

I don't know how exactly many different legal requirements exists worldwide (guess > 200 ; depends on the "counting" definition you are using) and can or could be fuffilled by EHS but any legal requirement does have exceptions (DG examples) and the business need to define which exeption should be dealed with using EH&S and which can be ignored (to complex etc.). As consultant it is your turn to explain if EHS can be used and how to adapt. Experience show that < 5% of demands needs "modifications"  based on the SAP defintiion of a "modification"; therefore EHS is very flexible

If you take a look to europe: which REACh the "law" structure is complexe and the "pressure" to the companies who try to sell chemicals is very high (no data no market)

C.B.