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Apply best practices to plan for, respond to, and manage critical events and exercises. Built on ISO standards, you can respond faster with better collaboration using plans and playbooks, smart workflows, and real-time dashboards and insights, to ensure better incident response, decision-making, and continuous improvement.

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All the information and tools needed to manage any incident effectively through the entire lifecycle of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery, following ISO, ICS and other national standards. Keep your whole team following the same plans, communicating on the same platform, and viewing the same operating picture - from any place or device.

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All the tools needed to automate your safety management system in one easy-to-use platform, following ISO standards. Increase efficiency with powerful automation capabilities and provide real time insights to all levels of your business. Configurable notifications, workflows, analytics, and mapping empower your safety personnel to make better decisions wherever they are.

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Maintain a comprehensive view of the wellbeing of your workers, their needs, and the wellbeing initiatives conducted in your organization. Through various assessments, checks, analytics, and resources you can easily manage both the physical and mental wellbeing of personnel across various locations and programs.

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A suite of tools to collect risk data from across your organziation from a range of stakeholders, in real time, and based on ISO standards. Fully customisable, with everything from a simple pre-task assessment though to an organisational risk register, we make it easy to capture risk data and provide the analytics to derive rich insights, to keep your organisation safe and compliant.

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Track all your assets from your vehicle fleet, fixed or mobile plant and equipment though to your critical infrastructure using our range of tools. Plan maintenance ahead of time and by collecting lead indicator data from checklists and assessments on any mobile device, then enable users to update the status of your assets to track utilisation, share documentation and report issues.

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Save time and money by enabling contractors to self-register and progress through a customizable workflow, to check documentation before becoming an approved contractor. Contractors can then be automatically followed up using workflows and notifications to keep their organziation compliant.

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Streamline visitor sign-in using a QR code on a form tailored for your organisation. Visitors can complete inductions, answer questions and acknowledge content then have notifications triggered to their host based on their responses. Once on site, manage visitor cards, broadcast notifications and understand visitor trends to optimise your processes.

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All the information and tools needed to manage any incident effectively through the entire lifecycle of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery, following ISO, ICS and other national standards. Keep your whole team following the same plans, communicating on the same platform, and viewing the same operating picture - from any place or device.

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  • Emergency Management Emergency Management
  • Governance Risk & Compliance Governance, Risk & Compliance
  • Asset Management Asset Management
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Proactively manage all aspects of physical security operations from anywhere, on any device. Based on ISO standards, streamline your operations using workflow automations to guide information capture, enrichment, follow up tasks, and notifications. Validate threats and risks to drive better investment of your resources.

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Manage cyber threats, risks, and treatments based on industry best-practice guidelines and ISO standards. Plan objectives and set targets, manage all elements of standards-compliance, and schedule and record audits and inspections. Manage non-compliances and corrective actions, and drive continual improvement review cycles.

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Streamline visitor sign-in using a QR code on a form tailored for your organisation. Visitors can complete inductions, answer questions and acknowledge content then have notifications triggered to their host based on their responses. Once on site, manage visitor cards, broadcast notifications and understand visitor trends to optimise your processes.

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Consolidate the threat and risk picture across all your assets, easily demonstrate compliance with security obligations, and gain an ‘all threats’ perspective encompassing physical, cyber, personnel and supply chain. Address and manage cyber threats without having to implement costly new ICT systems and drive continuous improvement and review cycles.

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All the information and tools needed to manage any incident effectively through the entire lifecycle of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery, following ISO, ICS and other national standards. Keep your whole team following the same plans, communicating on the same platform, and viewing the same operating picture - from any place or device.

Learn More
Request a Demo

Manage cyber, emergency and security threats, risks, and treatments based on industry best-practice guidelines and ISO standards. Plan objectives and set targets, manage all elements of standards-compliance, and schedule and record audits and inspections. Manage non-compliances and corrective actions and drive continual improvement review cycles.

Learn More
Request a Demo

Track all your assets from your vehicle fleet, fixed or mobile plant and equipment though to your critical infrastructure using our range of tools. Plan maintenance ahead of time and by collecting lead indicator data from checklists and assessments on any mobile device, then enable users to update the status of your assets to track utilization, share documentation and report issues.

Learn More
Request a Demo

Save time and money by enabling contractors to self-register and progress through a customizable workflow, to check documentation before becoming an approved contractor. Contractors can then be automatically followed up using workflows and notifications to keep their organziation compliant.

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Follow ISO standard approaches to determine disruption impacts and develop plans & recovery strategies to address risks. Track gaps, dependencies and tests, capture exercises, and manage insurance details. Scale up to any incident and back down to business as usual as quickly as possible and drive continuous improvement.

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Apply best practices to plan for, respond to, and manage critical events and exercises. Built on ISO standards, you can respond faster with better collaboration using plans and playbooks, smart workflows, and real-time dashboards and insights, to ensure better incident response, decision-making, and continuous improvement.

Learn More
Request a Demo

Manage cyber, emergency and security threats, risks, and treatments based on industry best-practice guidelines and ISO standards. Plan objectives and set targets, manage all elements of standards-compliance, and schedule and record audits and inspections. Manage non-compliances and corrective actions and drive continual improvement review cycles.

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Ensure preparedness across your organisation. Conduct business impact assessments and quickly identify essential functions. Assess hazard and threat risks. Identify technology, assets, facilities, and critical personnel. Gather and assemble essential information and documents. Develop, test and maintain your COOP plans. From readiness and preparedness to reconstitution, manage all four phases of the Continuity of Operations Plan to minimize business loss and disruption.

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Whitepaper

A Comprehensive Guide to Hazardous Materials Management

Noggin

Work Safety Management Software

Published May 19, 2021

Hazardous Materials Management

Hazardous substances remain omnipresent in today’s economy. After all, they were a driver of economic growth. And as a result, you’ll find hazardous substances throughout the business landscape.

To limit the impact of these substances on the health and safety of workers, communities, and the environment, though, employers must comply with the hazardous materials regulations that are in place in their jurisdiction.

What’s more, those frameworks tend to be multi-layered, consisting of international, federal/national, state, and/or local statutes. Employers will have to integrate the relevant regulations into their hazardous materials management system to be considered fully compliant. This piece addresses how to do it.

Classification of hazardous materials hazards

Employers must first understand what substances are considered hazardous. Essentially, these are substances that present physical, chemical, or biological hazards to people or the environment.

Beyond that definition, hazardous waste varies by type. Types can include the following:

  • Hazardous residues of waste material that may contaminate and persist in water and soil, i.e., sludge from re-refining used oil that contains a variety of contaminants.
  • Hazardous residues that are released into the atmosphere as products of combustion, i.e., dioxin.

The Basel Convention, which regulates the transboundary movement of hazardous waste, defines hazardous waste as waste that has any of the following characteristics:

  • Explosive
  • Flammable liquids/solids
  • Poisonous
  • Toxic
  • Etoxic
  • Infectious substances

Wastes that belong to the above category include the following:

  • Clinical wastes
  • Waste oils/water, hydrocarbons/water mixtures, emulsions
  • Wastes from the production, formulation and use of resins, latex, plasticizers, glues/adhesives
  • Wastes resulting from surface treatment of metals and plastics
  • Residues arising from industrial waste disposal operations

Wastes which contain certain compounds, such as copper, zinc, cadmium, mercury, lead, and asbestos

Household waste

Residues arising from the incineration of household waste

The regulation of these substances is likewise complex. In Australia, for instance, hazardous waste is waste that, by its characteristics, poses a threat or risk to public health, safety, or the environment.

The term corresponds to the following:

  • Wastes that cannot be imported or exported from Australia without a permit
  • Wastes that any jurisdiction regulates as requiring particularly high level of management and control
  • Additional wastes nominated as hazardous by the Government

Additionally, a hazard has a set of inherent properties that may cause adverse effects to organisms or the environment, examples of which include:

  • Health hazards. These are properties of a chemical that have the potential to cause adverse health effects. Exposure usually occurs through inhalation, skin contact, or ingestion. Adverse health effects can be acute (short term) or chronic (long term). Typical acute health effects include headaches, nausea or vomiting, and skin corrosion, while chronic health effects, include asthma, dermatitis, nerve damage, or cancer.
  • Physicochemical hazards. These are physical or chemical properties of the substance, mixture, or article that pose risks to workers other than health risks, as they do not occur because of the biological interaction of the chemical with people. They arise through inappropriate handling or use and can often result in injury to people and/or damage to property because of the intrinsic physical hazard. Examples of physicochemical hazards include the following, flammable, corrosive, explosive, chemically reactive and oxidizing chemicals.

Hazardous materials management plan

How then to deal with these substances? The best-practice approach to the control and management of hazardous materials is the hazardous materials management plan (HMMP).

A typical plan will lay out the proper use, handling, and storage practices and procedures to be followed by personnel working with hazardous materials.

That’s not all, of course. Part communication plan, part description of hazardous materials management processes, a HMMP will often include the following sections:

  • List of duties and responsibilities, particularly those of safety personnel
  • Hazardous material labelling and other identification and awareness elements
  • Specific protocols for hazardous materials handling and storage (More below)
  • Hazardous material inventory
  • List of relevant biological and radiological hazards
  • Instructions regarding hazardous material procurement
  • Measures to mitigate hazards, including engineering and administrative controls, personal protective equipment, hygiene and hazardous material safety, training, and other activities
  • Emergency response protocols, including fire safety procedures, gas leaks, exposure evaluations, accident and near miss reporting, emergency evacuation, and more
  • Waste management protocols
  • Instructions for transportation, shipping, and receiving hazardous materials
  • Relevant appendices, including a glossary of relevant terms, classifications of hazardous materials hazards, biosafety management manual, etc.

Hazardous materials management processes

One of the most important aspects of hazardous materials management is handling and storage. And so, HMMPs will often detail guidelines for handling and storage.

These guidelines vary depending on the hazardous substances in question. Generic guidelines, though, include the following:

  • Hazardous materials must be stored in secured areas, i.e., not accessible to the public.
  • Highly toxic and reactive materials need additional means of security such as lockable cabinets.
  • Read hazardous material labels for specific storage instructions.
  • Store hazardous materials in a well-ventilated area; however, do not store hazardous materials in a fume hood.
  • Label all new material with the date in which it was received and the date in which it was opened. This will help prevent the accumulation of outdated hazardous materials and ensure that older hazardous materials are used first.
  • Maintain an inventory of all hazardous materials in storage, preferably in digital form in a safety management software platform
  • Promptly discard outdated hazardous materials or hazardous materials no longer needed by the laboratory/unit.
  • Return hazardous material containers to their proper storage location after use.

Finally, multiple jurisdictions are moving to strengthen their work health and safety regimes regarding hazardous substances in the workplace.

Employers, in their turn, must remain proactive to mitigate the threats posed by hazardous waste as well as remain in compliance with these evolving regulations.

Adopting best-practice hazardous materials management protocols, such as the many endorsed here, can only help firms mitigate risk, reduce cost, reach compliance, and ultimately achieve a competitive advantage in their industries.

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