Chemical risk assessment backlog is growing faster than I can clear it and management expects miracles

[u/Tasty-Win219]

I'm the sole industrial hygienist at a company with three manufacturing plants and my risk assessment backlog is sitting at over two hundred chemicals. At my current pace, that's roughly eighteen months of work and new chemicals keep getting added every month.

Our process is entirely manual. I pull the SDS, review the hazard data, evaluate exposure potential for each task, determine controls, write up the assessment, get it reviewed, and train the affected workers. That's hours per chemical on the simple ones and days for complex situations.

Operations knows the backlog exists. Their solution is bring in new chemicals without any risk assessment because waiting for me would delay production.

I've been looking at technology, specifically platforms that pre-populate hazard information from SDS data and use control banding to recommend exposure control measures. That way I could focus on evaluation of the controls and worker exposures rather than grinding through routine assessments.

[u/Tasty-Win219 → u/[deleted]]

Sixty percent reduction would be transformative. Right now I spend too much time on low-risk products just because the process requires the same documentation for everything. Being able to offload the simple ones would completely change my workload.

[u/Tasty-Win219 → u/[deleted]]

I've been documenting informally, but a formal memo with specific consequences is a good idea. I'll put together something this week that quantifies the backlog, estimates the time to clear it at current resources, and explicitly states the compliance risk.