Chemical Inventory Accuracy

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Chemical Inventory Accuracy

• Kathy Ertell
• EFCOG Chemical Safety and Lifecycle Management
  Subgroup
• EFCOG/DOE Chemical Safety Workshop
• March 2008
• Information Release Approval No. PNNL-SA-59328

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EFCOG CSLM Subgroup, Inventory Accuracy Team
Tasks

• Review inventory accuracy measurement methods
• Determine what methods best apply to chemical
  inventories
• Review relevant industry standards for inventory
  accuracy standards
• Develop a recommended suite of methods and
  outcome expectations
• Tasks still in progress ..

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Questions under Consideration

• What parameters of chemical inventory accuracy
  are important to consider location, volume,
  etc.?
• Are all parameters equally important?
• How often is it necessary to evaluate accuracy?
• Is it necessary to assess the entire inventory,
  or can statistical samples work?
• Can risk-based graded approaches work?
• What expectations do management, regulators, DOE,
  have for accuracy levels?
• What do the numbers really mean?

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Inventory Accuracy Why Does It Matter?

• Chemicals are sometimes regarded as property.
• Property has a long history of conducting
  inventory assessments.
• Data needs for environmental, safety, and health
  reporting regulatory and management
• Inaccurate data in chemical inventory databases
  leads to inaccurate reporting
• High hazard chemicals communicate and control
  risks to public, workers, facilities,
  stakeholders
• Control of high value and high sensitivity
  chemicals

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Items in Chemical Inventories

• High Consequence
• High value and/or
• High hazard and/or
• High sensitivity.
• Ordinary chemicals
• Low Consequence
• Low hazard and/or
• Low value and/or
• Low sensitivity.

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Standards and Practices

• Few, if any, specific standards for chemical
  inventory accuracy.
• Body of knowledge for property management,
  industrial acceptance sampling, and for auditing.
• ASTM E2132-01 Standard Practices for Physical
  Inventories
• DOE Order 580.1 Personal Property Management
• Military standards

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Property Management Methods

• Wall-to-wall physical inventory required for some
  items ammunition, weapons
• Inventory by exception labor saving, selected
  transactions
• Statistical sampling approaches physical
  verification of accuracy by randomly selected
  records in property database
• Witnessed inventory third party verification
• Electronic inventory methods Sunflower Assets
  software, property owners certify their property.

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Frequency of Property Inventories

• Frequency is related to value and sensitivity
• Equipment every 2 years
• Sensitive items annually
• Stores inventories annually
• Precious metals annually
• Fixed property every five years
• Full physical inventories, some items every 10
  years
• Statistical sampling if fail the stat sample
  audit, must do full physical inventory
  verification on the population.

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Differences in Property Management and Chemical
Management

• Number of items tracked in chemical inventories
  can be much larger than items tracked in property
  management
• Many low value / low consequence chemicals
  tracked in chemical inventory - no correlates in
  property
• Tracking movement of chemicals can be difficult
  in laboratory, maintenance environments
• Fewer staff assigned to chemical management in
  many institutions

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Statistical Approaches

• Acceptance sampling widely used in manufacturing
  quality control and auditing accept/reject lots
  based on sampling
• Whats the population?
• Representative samples
• All items/sets must be individually identified
• All items need an equal chance of selection
• Statistical approach can be as much or more work
  than a wall-to-wall physical inventory, depending
  on population size field verification is more
  time-consuming than wall-to-wall barcode shoots.

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Whats Important to Measure

• What do you mean by inventory accuracy?
• What do you want to achieve?
• Do you care about the accuracy of the entire
  inventory, or only certain types of items?
• What attributes are most important to measure?
• Location, building, room, container size, name of
  chemical, owner, volume?
• Are all attributes equally important? Is a
  weighted scheme (more complex) needed?

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Whats Important to Measure?

• Varies according to priorities, applicable
  regulations, type of work, security level.
• Inventory of high hazard chemicals present in
  significant quantities (reactive chemicals,
  Homeland Security, Emergency Preparedness rules)
  is important.
• High value/high sensitivity chemicals - may be
  monitored by others (precious metals, controlled
  substances).
• Fire zone compliance is important to many sites.
• Accurate location is important to many users.

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Accuracy Whats Acceptable for Property

• ASTM E2123-01 (2007)
• Annual loss rates measure relative property
  control success.
• For populations with high consequences, annual
  loss rate targets may be virtually 0.
• For populations with very low consequences,
  annual loss rates of as high as 10 may be
  acceptable.
• Typical acceptable annual loss rates vary from
  0.5 to 5. (for property)

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Accuracy Results- Whats Acceptable for Chemicals?

• It depends
• Do you measure before or after inventory
  reconciliation? Opinions, practices vary.
• Before 75-80 may be acceptable for most items
  in a dynamic chemical inventory
• Before gt 90 for high hazard/value/sensitive
  chemicals.
• After 90 may be acceptable for most items in a
  dynamic chemical inventory, higher for fixed or
  process-based inventory
• After gt 95 for high hazard/value/sensitive
  chemicals.

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Why Not 100 Accuracy?

• Not usually achievable might be achievable in
  some situations.
• Large numbers of chemical containers.
• Many chemicals are consumables.
• Resources required would be large.
• Technology to measure inventory accuracy on a
  real-time basis needed, but not available yet.
• What if you dont meet the 100 target?
• Might be better to set a realistic target,
  improve over time as you learn.

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How to Measure Inventory Accuracy?

• Wall-to-wall physical inventories are
  well-established practices.
• Wall-to-wall inventories may be needed on some
  frequency to maintain accurate database, but
  resource-intensive.
• Statistical sampling has a valuable role,
  especially with high numbers of items, where
  verification of all containers not feasible.
• Graded approach high consequence items need to
  be inventoried differently and/or more often than
  the general chemical inventory.

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Summary

• Committee still reviewing options and approaches
• Input from conference attendees is welcome.
• Heres how we do it
• Contact information
• Kathy Ertell, katherine.ertell_at_pnl.gov,
• 509-371-7881
• Leslie Soderquist, Leslie.Soderquist_at_icp.doe.gov
• 208-526-0437

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Disclaimer

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Questions ?Comments ?